Hannes H. Gissurarson Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers Part I Hannes H. Gissurarson

Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers Part I

New Direction MMXX CONTENTS Hannes H. Gissurarson is Professor of Politics at the University of Iceland and Director of Research at RNH, the Icelandic Research Centre for Innovation and Economic Growth. The author of several books in Icelandic, English and Swedish, he has been on the governing boards of the Central Bank of Iceland and the Mont Pelerin Society and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford, UCLA, LUISS, George Mason and other universities. He holds a D.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University and a B.A. and an M.A. in History and Philosophy from the University of Iceland.

Introduction 7

Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) 13

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) 35

John Locke (1632–1704) 57

David Hume (1711–1776) 83

Adam Smith (1723–1790) 103

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) 129

Founded by Margaret Thatcher in 2009 as the intellectual Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) 163 hub of European Conservatism, New Direction has established academic networks across Europe and research Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) 185 partnerships throughout the world. Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) 215

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) 243

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) 281

New Direction is registered in Belgium as a not-for-profit organisation and is partly funded by the European Parliament. Registered Office: Rue du Trône, 4, 1000 Brussels, Belgium President: Tomasz Poręba MEP Executive Director: Witold de Chevilly Lord Acton (1834–1902) 313 The European Parliament and New Direction assume no responsibility for the opinions expressed in this publication. Sole liability rests with the author. 7

INTRODUCTION

onservative liberalism is not a political programme: it is a tradition which can be traced back to medieval ideas about Cgovern­ment by consent, found in the writings of Snorri Sturlu­ son, and a natural law applying both to princes and the people, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught. These two principles were combined by John Locke into a theory of a social contract and a justification of private property. In the eighteenth century, these ideas were refined by Adam Smith, who based his political theory on the twin pillars of authority and utility and who presented powerful arguments for economic freedom, and by David Hume and Edmund Burke who conceived of the social contract as being written by history, consisting in a partnership between people living, dead, and unborn. Smith, Hume, and Burke all believed that coordination without commands would be possible in a free society. Their contemporary, a Nordic clergyman, Anders Chydenius, expressed similar thoughts about natural law and economic harmony. Conservative liberalism may be contrasted with eighteenth century French rationalism and nineteenth century English utilitarianism, as three French thinkers demonstrate, Benjamin Constant, Frédéric Bastiat and Alexis de Tocqueville. Their case for liberty was moral no less than economic, and they stressed the importance of limited government, spontaneous cooperation, and voluntary associations. They were also, like Hume and Burke, sceptical of claims that individual reason, unaided by practice, could and should reconstruct society, while 8 Introduction Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 9 they sought to uncover and explain the role of social reason, embodied made significant contributions to the conservative-liberal tradition: in traditions, customs, habits, and manners. In England, Lord Acton Milton Friedman by elucidating many unintended consequences of took a similar view. He and his forerunners in the con­servative-liberal interventionism, while presenting ingenious proposals for liberal tradition all held that the 1688 Glorious Revolution in Great Britain and reforms, James M. Buchanan by exposing the myth of benevolent the 1776 American Revolution were made to preserve liberties, while the despots and Robert Nozick by explaining the principles of justice in 1789 French Revolution was about relocating power instead of trying to initial appropriation and voluntary exchange and by refuting arguments limit it. Although Herbert Spencer and William Graham­ Sumner, writing for extensive redistribution. in the late nineteenth century, employed conse­quentialist arguments, as Of the twenty-four thinkers discussed in this work, seven are sensible people do, they rejected futile efforts to make the world over. British, the English Locke, Spencer, Acton, and Oakeshott, the Scots For them, people could claim the fullest liberty to exercise their faculties Hume and Smith, and the Irish Burke; and five are American,­ Sumner, compatible with the pos­session of the same liberty for others. Rand, Friedman, Buchanan, and Nozick. Five come from German- Economics, a discipline founded by Adam Smith, has provided strong speaking countries (one from Germany and four from Austria), Röpke, intellectual support for conservative liberalism. In Austria, Carl Menger Menger, Mises, Hayek, and Popper; four are French, Constant, Bastiat, not only presented the subjective theory of value, but also cogently ex­ Tocqueville, and Jouvenel; one is Icelandic, Snorri, one Italian, plained spontaneous development. Another economist in the Austrian Aquinas, and one Swedish, Chydenius. Some of them straddle borders: tradition, Ludwig von Mises, pointed out the chief weaknesses of social­ Hayek and Popper can be said to be Anglo-Austrian, Mises Austrian- ism, being belatedly vindicated by its collapse in the late 1980s. The American, Rand Russian-American, Constant Franco-Swiss and Röpke Austrian-English economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek German-Swiss. Of these emigrants, four were refugees from European developed the insights found in Austrian economics and the British totalitarianism, Mises, Röpke, Popper and Rand. Locke also had to flee polit­ical tradition into a social and political theory which seeks to explain his country, although he was able to return after a successful revolution. the enormous achievements of Western civilisation despite individual Acton, perhaps the most cosmopolitan of these twenty-four thinkers, is ignorance. After the Second World War his friend and compatriot Karl half-English, one fourth German and one fourth Italian. Incidentally, Popper published a spirited defence of the open society. At the same five of the thinkers discussed here are Jewish (by ethnicity rather than time, Wilhelm Röpke in Germany and Bertrand de Jouvenel in France religion), Mises, Popper, Rand, Friedman, and Nozick, and one is half- re­affirmed liberal values in a confrontation with the totalitarianism that Jewish, Jouvenel, whereas two are ordained clergymen, the Catholic haunted Europe in the twentieth century. In 1947, Mises, Hayek, Popper, Aquinas and the Evangelical-Lutheran Chydenius. Eight belonged to Röpke and Jouvenel all became founding members of the Mont Pelerin the nobility, Aquinas, Constant (who rarely used his title, Baron de Society, an international academy of liberal thinkers which has played a Rebecque), de Tocqueville, Lord Acton, Menger (who never used his pivotal role in the rejuvenation of the conservative-liberal tradition. title, von Wolfersgrün), von Mises, von Hayek and de Jouvenel, and two In America, Russian-born Ayn Rand forcefully responded to the were knighted, Snorri Sturluson and Sir Karl R. Popper. chal­lenge posed by Burke and Tocqueville that in commercial societies Ten of the twenty-four thinkers are political philosophers, Aquinas, heroes might be replaced by mere calculators. In her novels, she described Locke, Hume, Constant, Tocqueville, Spencer, Popper, Jouvenel, Oake­ innovators and entrepreneurs who refuse to be enslaved by the masses. shott, and Nozick; eight are economists, Smith, Bastiat, Menger, Mises, In England, Michael Oakeshott further articulated the British political Hayek, Röpke, Friedman, and Buchanan; two are historians, Snorri and tradition, conservative in its emphasis on proven practices, liberal in Acton; one is a sociologist, Sumner, and one a novelist, Rand. Six were its celebration of individuality. Three American thinkers have since men of independent means, Snorri, Constant, Bastiat, Tocqueville, 10 Introduction Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 11

Acton, and Jouvenel, three mainly supported themselves by their books, France; Acton was adviser to British Prime Minister William Gladstone; Hume, Spencer, and Rand, whereas thirteen were university professors, Hayek’s books were avidly read by British Prime Ministers Winston at least for some time, Aquinas, Locke, Smith, Sumner, Menger, Mises, Churchill and Margaret Thatcher and by President Ronald Reagan of Hayek, Röpke, Oakeshott, Popper, Friedman, Buchanan, and Nozick. the United States; Röpke was adviser to the German government during Chydenius was a government official, and Burke did not fall into any the rapid recovery of his country; Popper was an effective spokesman for single category. the West in the Cold War; and Friedman’s proposals were implemented There are three reasons why in this work I frequently use examples in countries as diverse as the United States, China, Great Britain, New from Iceland. First, I am as an Icelander more familiar with her history Zealand, Chile, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Iceland. than that of other countries. I am using my comparative advantage, as Moreover, eight of these thinkers sat in the national assemblies of their Smith would understand. In the second place, this hopefully allows me respective countries, Snorri in Iceland, Constant, Bastiat and Tocqueville to say something new about thinkers on whom countless books have in France, Chydenius in Sweden, Burke and Acton in Britain, and Menger been written, instead of simply repeating what can be found there. in Austria. Thus, some of these thinkers were detached scholars, staying Icelanders are rare birds, and an Icelandic perspective is an uncommon above the fray, whereas others by no means eschewed political action. one, for example on the relevance of Locke to the Icelandic system in Finally, while these twenty-four thinkers are independent individuals, the fisheries, of Aquinas to the operation of an illegal radio station in with diverse backgrounds and different approaches to political problems, 1984, and of Friedman to the liberal reforms in Iceland between 1991 I have focused on the ideas they share, not where they may differ. Certainly and 2004. Thirdly, the ideas and approaches of conservative liberalism they all are in favour of the rule of law, separation of powers, a flourishing were mostly developed in relatively big countries like Great Britain, the civil society alongside the state, competition in the marketplace, free United States, France and the two German-speaking countries, Germany trade, and private property. They all prefer evolution to revolution, and Austria. If they can be shown to be relevant also in tiny outposts except in dire circumstances, whereas they share a distrust of people in like Iceland, it serves to strengthen their universal appeal. I also share power, whether by inheritance, election, or usurpation. Again, they all my personal recollections of five thinkers, Hayek, Popper, Friedman, resolutely reject ancient absolutism and modern totalitarianism. While Buchanan, and Nozick, in a further attempt to add something to the they may present various kinds of arguments for their positions, from knowledge and understanding of them and their ideas. divine command, human reason, social utility, natural evolution, moral Another feature of this work is that I try to put these thinkers in an intuition, and common consent, these positions are all in the end based historical context, although their arguments can of course be evaluated­ on a choice, which is a commitment to, indeed a celebration of, Judeo- on their own, and I also discuss their political impact which in some cases Christian Western civilisation. Ultimately, their theories may be regarded was, and remains, quite significant. Snorri delayed Iceland’s­ annexation as different, but not mutually exclusive, historical interpretations and by Norway; Aquinas is the official philosopher of the Catholic Church;(1) philosophical articulations of this civilisation. Perhaps the best, albeit Locke inspired the revolutionaries of 1688 in Britain and of 1776 in somewhat metaphysical, way of describing conservative liberalism is as America; Smith can be regarded as the father of economic liberalism, a the self-consciousness of Western civilisation. force which transformed the world; Tocqueville was Foreign Minister of Reykjavik, 4 October 2020. Hannes Gissurarson

(1) According to the 2019 Annuario Pontifico [Pontifical Yearbook] (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2019), there were 1.3 billion Catholics in the world at the end of 2017. Apparently, the Sunni section of the world Muslim population is similar in size. 12 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) 13

Snorri Sturluson

(1179–1241)

t is hardly surprising that one of the main sentiments shared by conservative liberals, a deep-rooted suspicion of potential despots, Iwas prevalent in Medieval Iceland. This remote island in the North Atlantic Ocean had been settled in the period between 874 and 930, mostly by farmers moving from Norway where one such despot, King Harold Finehair, had conquered the whole country and imposed new taxes on the population. Thus, Iceland can be said to have been the first tax haven, or, in a less charitable interpretation, a refugee camp. The settlers of the new country established a remarkable political order in 930, the Icelandic Commonwealth, under which they shared the same law, but managed without a central government, let alone a king or an aristocracy. ‘Apud illos non est rex, nisi tantum lex,’ wrote the German chronicler Adam from Bremen in the 11th century: they have no king, ex­ cept the law.(1) The owners of the roughly five thousand farms scattered around the island, mostly on or close to the coast, were members of two kinds of political communities. One was the commune, hreppur, which was territorial and not subject to choice, usually extending over a valley with at least twenty farms, administering the mountain pastures jointly utilised by the farmers and providing mutual insurance against natural disasters.(2) The other community was the chieftainship, godord: Iceland was divided into Quarters, with farmers in each Quarter being

Snorri wrote his chronicle of (1) Adam von Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (ca. 1075), Book IV, §244. History of Norwegian kings as a warning to the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, tran. by Francis J. Tschan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), p. 217. his compatriots about royal abuse of power. Painting by Haukur (2) Thrainn Eggertsson, Analyzing Institutional Successes and Failures: A Millennium of Common Stefansson. Mountain Pastures in Iceland, International Review of Law and Economics, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1992), pp. 423–437. 14 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 15 able to choose to which chieftain in their Quarter they would pledge time, Oddi was a site of learning and tradition. Jon Loftsson’s paternal allegiance. The 39 chieftains of the country were meant to execute the grandfather, Saemund Sigfusson, had been a distinguished scholar. law and to protect the weak. They met every summer for two weeks He had been educated abroad (in the German region of Franconia) at the Althing, or parliament, to hear cases and thus to interpret and and composed a (now lost) history of Norwegian kings. Even more sometimes, inevitably, to revise or to expand the law. Thus, the law of the remarkably, Jon Loftsson’s maternal grandfather was a Norwegian king, Icelandic Commonwealth was privately developed and enforced, with Magnus Barefoot, one of whose illegitimate daughters had married Jon’s each chieftainship operating as a protective association, or a nascent father. At Oddi, Snorri developed an avid interest in ancient poetry, law mini-state.(3) The only public official of the Icelandic Commonwealth and history. His fosterfather passed away in 1197 when Snorri was 18 was the Lawspeaker, elected every third year by the chieftains. It was his years old, but with the assistance of his fosterbrothers, two years later he task to recite the law at the Althing, one-third each year, and to counsel was able to marry an heiress, Herdis Bersadaughter, moving to her estate people in legal matters. After Iceland’s law was written down in the early at Borg in Western Iceland and inheriting the chieftainship of her father. 11th century, the Lawspeaker’s counselling role became more important. They had two children together, but after four years Snorri divorced his The best-known Lawspeaker of the Commonwealth, Snorri Sturluson, wife and moved to Reykholt, also in the West where he was to live to the was also the author of seminal works in which conservative and liberal end of his life, while acquiring many other farms and chieftainships. He sentiments were expressed, Heimskringla, a history of political conflicts had five more children by three concubines. in Norway, and Egil’s Saga, one of the most-acclaimed sagas of the Snorri soon became known and respected for his knowledge of the Icelanders.(4) law, and when he was 36 years old, in 1215, he was elected Iceland’s Lawspeaker. He also wrote a lot of poetry, even compiling a handbook Snorri’s Life and Works and anthology for aspiring poets, the so-called Edda of Snorri. There he gave a detailed account of Germanic mythology and demonstrated Born in 1179, Snorri Sturluson was the son of Gudny Bodvarsdaughter his skill in composing various forms of verse. In 1218, Snorri went to and her husband, a quarrelsome chieftain, Sturla Thordson of the farm Norway to pay his respects to the fourteen-year old King Haakon IV Hvamm in Western Iceland. (The Icelanders do not have family names, and to the regent, Earl Skuli Bardsson. The two rulers were keen to Sturluson just indicating that Snorri was son of Sturla, so here he will be extend royal power to Iceland, which they considered an integral part called by his first, and only, name.) When Snorri was only three years old, of the Norse world. Whereas first Orkney and Shetland and then the the most powerful chieftain in Iceland, Jon Loftsson, interfered in one of Faroe Islands had been annexed by the Norwegian king, in 875 and 1035 Sturla’s numerous feuds, on behalf of his opponent. In order to ease the respectively, Iceland had remained independent, although with close resulting tension, Jon offered to foster Sturla’s son Snorri at Oddi, where cultural and economic ties to Norway. Snorri promised to bring their he lived, in Southern Iceland. For Snorri, this was a crucial move. At the message to his compatriots. Because of skirmishes in Iceland between some chieftains and Norwegian merchants, Earl Skuli briefly considered sending an invasion force to the island, but Snorri managed to calm him (3) David Friedman, Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case, Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1979), pp. 399–415. down. He and the Earl became friends, and Snorri was made a ‘Landed (4) I will not deal here with minutiae in exegesis. I leave controversies about Snorri’s works to learned Man’, or Knight, at the Norwegian Court. In the summer of 1219 he philologists. It seems to me most plausible that Snorri composed Edda before his first trip to Norway, made a trip to Sweden and met with the Lawspeaker of West Gotland, in preparation for offering his services as poet to the Norwegian king, that he wroteHeimskringla between the two trips, partly in response to attempts by the king to acquire Iceland, and that he wrote Eskil Magnusson, and his wife, Kristina Nilsdaughter, the widow of a Egil’s Saga after his second trip to Norway, after which he had become an explicit opponent of the king. This has all been contested, however, even his authorship of any or all of these three works. Norwegian ruler. The couple could tell him much about the history of 16 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 17

the time and long the country’s only elected official as Lawspeaker, time and again he hesitated to use force against his opponents, and in 1237 he decided to evade them by going again to Norway. Now however King Haakon IV was a grown man of 33 years and not only intent on ruling Norway without the help of Snorri’s friend Earl Skuli, but also on extending Norwegian power to Iceland and Greenland. When Snorri wanted to return to Iceland in 1239, King Haakon ordered him to stay, but Snorri disobeyed with the words, ‘Nevertheless, I will go home.’(6) In the next two years in Reykholt Snorri wrote a saga about his forefather, the poet and warrior Egil Skallagrimsson, who in the 10th century had lived at Borg like Snorri and who had entered with vengeance into a longstanding feud between his own family and the Norwegian royal family. Meanwhile, in Norway King Haakon had Earl Skuli (who by now had become a Duke) killed after Skuli’s failed rebellion. The king also sent The settlers of Iceland in a secret letter to one of Snorri’s Icelandic rivals, Gissur Thorvaldsson, Sweden. After his return to Iceland in 1220 874–930 braved rough seas telling him either to bring Snorri to Norway or to have him killed. On to escape royal rule and taxes. Snorri was again Lawspeaker from 1222 to Painting by Carl Rasmussen. 23 September 1241, Gissur went with seventy men to Snorri’s residence, 1231, but he did nothing to further the cause Reykholt. Taken by surprise, Snorri managed to hide in a cellar under of the Norwegian king except providing protection to Norwegian mer­ a storeroom. A priest in his household was tricked into telling the chants. Back in Reykholt he married the richest woman in Iceland, Hall­ attackers about his whereabouts, and five of Gissur’s men went down to veig Ormsdaughter, a widow, and wrote a work about Norwegian history, the basement. When they approached Snorri, he exclaimed, ‘You shall usually called Heimskringla (The Disc of the World) after the opening not strike!’ They killed him on the spot.(7) words in the Prologue: ‘The disc of the world that mankind inhabits is very indented with bays.’(5) It is often said that Heimskringla is a history A Warning Against Kings of the Norwegian kings, but in fact it is no less a history of the opposition to them, not only by potential rivals, but also by Norwegian chieftains and Snorri’s Heimskringla shows a keen awareness of the conflict in Norway farmers, some of whom emerge as strong, independent and occasionally between two kinds of law, the folk law and royal decrees. The ancient admirable characters. German conception of the law was that it was mainly customary. It was In Iceland, Snorri became embroiled in conflicts between competing a common heritage, not unlike language, maintained in an oral tradition chieftains, not least those belonging to his own family, the descendants and to be discovered rather than stipulated. It was permanent and not of Sturla Thordson. Although Snorri was the richest man in Iceland at

(6) Sturlunga Saga, Vol. I, tran. by Julia H. McGrew (New York: Twayne, 1970). Sturla Thordson, The Saga of the Icelanders, Ch. 143, p. 349. Sturla Thordson was Snorri’s cousin, but as the king’s man he was quite ambivalent about his uncle and probably not always fair to him. It seems to me that many (5) Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla (ca. 1220–30), Vol. I–III, tran. by A. Finley and A. Faulkes (London: commentators on Snorri have not been sufficiently critical of Sturla and his motives. For example, in the Viking Society for Northern Research, 2014–2016). Vol. I. The Saga of the Ynglings, Ch. 1, p. 6. An older case of Snorri’s alleged mission after 1220 on behalf of the Norwegian Crown, we should rather look at translation of Heimskringla, by Samuel Laing and Rasmus B. Anderson, is accessible at the website of what Snorri did than at what Sturla suggested Snorri said in conversations with the Norwegians. Liberty Fund, whose founder, the entrepreneur and philantropist Pierre Goodrich, considered Snorri Sturluson one of the thinkers who contributed significantly to our understanding of liberty. (7) Ibid., Ch. 151, p. 360. 18 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 19 subject to deliberate change. Its development required something like comments on two earls who ruled Norway for a while that ‘they kept well unanimous acceptance in an assembly after consultations with leading to the ancient law and all the customs of the land and were popular and members of the community, the wise old men whom everybody respected. good rulers’.(12) Yet again, when King Olaf the Fat asked the landowners Where there were kings, they were bound by the law like everybody else. to accept him as king, he promised them ‘in return ancient laws and to But after the conquest of Norway in the 870s by King Harold Finehair, defend the land from foreign armies and rulers’.(13) a new conception of law was introduced there. It was that it consisted More telling examples of a conflict between the ancient law and royal in royal decrees. The king became a lawgiver, not being necessarily decrees are found in Snorri’s Heimskringla.(14) The author must have bound himself by the law. Even if the legal system might become more seen the problem more clearly than other legal scholars because he could efficient by such a change, the law itself could not be regarded any more observe it from the vantage point of a country where the old conception as a curb on arbitrary power. Instead, it became an instrument in the of law had been maintained: the Icelandic Commonwealth. Moreover, hands of the king.(8) Snorri vividly describes in Heimskringla how King according to the ancient tradition, the king was not only regarded as Harold Finehair in the 870s took possession of all inherited property being under the law: he also had to rule by general consent rather than in Norway, collecting fines and making the farmers, rich and poor, pay by the grace of God. Normally, he could only expect such consent by him land dues.(9) In order to gain the support of farmers, his successors promising to follow the good, old law and to keep taxation within limits. however often promised them that they would obey the good, old law. Thus, a social contract between the king and his subjects was in force, One of them was Harold’s son Haakon, the foster-son of King Athelstan even if implicit, and when the king abused his power, he risked being of England. ‘Harold had enslaved and oppressed all people in the land, deposed and even killed. This is a recurrent theme in Heimskringla, but while Haakon wished everyone well and offered to return the farmers nowhere expressed as strongly as in a famous speech given by Snorri’s their patrimonies,’ as Snorri reports.(10) Swedish colleague, Lawspeaker Torgny, to his king in 1018. Snorri may Again, a century later, in the 990s when the farmers learned that King have heard the story in his trip to Sweden in 1219. Torgny complains that Olaf Tryggvason was travelling around with a large force ‘and break­ ‘this king that we have now lets no one dare to say anything to him except ing the people’s ancient laws, while all those who objected had to face just what he wants to have done, and devotes all his enthusiasm to that, punishments and harsh terms’, they flocked to their assemblies to meet but lets his tributary lands slip from his grasp through lack of energy and the king and tell him that they would ‘not subject themselves to wrongful lack of determination.’ He argues against a war with Norway and bluntly laws even if they are introduced by the king’.(11) Snorri also approvingly warns the king: ‘Should you be unwilling to accept what we demand, then we shall mount an attack against you and kill you and not put up with hostility and lawlessness from you. This is what our forefathers before (8) Sigurdur Lindal, Law and Legislation in the Icelandic Commonwealth, Scandinavian Studies us have done.’(15) The assemblymen expressed their approval by clashing in Law, Vol. 37 (1993), pp. 53–92. Cf. Sigurdur Lindal, Stjornspeki Snorra Sturlusonar eins og hun birtist i Heimskringlu [Snorri Sturluson’s Political Thought, as Expressed in Heimskringla], Ulfljotur, their weapons and making a great din. Torgny’s message to the king was Vol. 60, No. 3 (2007), pp. 651–732. Although Lindal does not mention it in his trenchant analysis of Snorri’s thought, the contrast can also be illustrated by Otto von Gierke’s terms, Herrschaft, lordship, and Genossenschaft, fellowship, in his account of German medieval law, Community in Historical Perspective, tran. by Mary Fischer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Daniel Hannan plausibly argues that the British political tradition can be partly traced back to German folk law, How (12) Ibid., Ch. 113, p. 233. We Invented Freedom and Why It Matters (London: Head of Zeus, 2013). (13) Heimskringla, Vol. II. The Saga of Saint Olav, Ch. 37, p. 30. Often his surname is given as Olaf the (9) Heimskringla, Vol. I. The Saga of Harold Finehair, Ch. 6, p. 56. Stout, but the Icelandic word ‘digur’ has a more derogatory meaning and should be translated as ‘fat’. (10) Ibid., Vol. I. The Saga of Hakon, Athelstan’s Foster-son, Ch. 1, p. 88. Here, unlike Snorri’s (14) Cf. Lawman Emund’s comment, Heimskringla, Vol. II. The Saga of Saint Olav, Ch. 94, p. 99; a translators, I anglicise Norse names, e.g. Harold for Haraldr. comment on King Canute, Ibid., Ch. 130, p. 148; and the critique of King Sven, Ibid., Ch. 239, pp. 267–8. (11) Ibid., The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, Ch. 54 and 55, p. 189. (15) Heimskringla, Vol. II. The Saga of Saint Olav, Ch. 80, p. 74–75. 20 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 21 later reinforced by Lawspeaker Emund and a wise old man, Arnvid the Blind.(16) The king had to relent and accept the farmers’ terms.(17) Snorri makes the Swedish king quite unsympathetic and ineffectual, probably because it gives him a freer hand in criticising him than if he had been a Norwegian king, let alone a canonised one like Olaf the Fat. Nevertheless, Snorri has so much to say about the avarice, callousness and cruelty of many Norwegian kings that it is tempting to read Heims­ kringla as a warning against kings in general.(18) Prince Erling Ericson, the grand­son of Harold Finehair, ‘made great demands on the farmers and made life hard for them’ with the result that they killed him.(19) Almost routinely, Norwegian kings had their own brothers assassinated, not to mention others. King Olaf Tryggvason had one of his opponents killed by placing red-hot bits of coal on his stomach and another one by forcing a snake down his throat.(20) Some he had maimed or thrown over high (21) cliffs. Taking Icelandic hostages in Norway, he bullied the Icelanders From 930 to 1262 the into adopting Christianity. As King Olaf the Fat was a saint of the Church, Icelanders had no king but the both eyes and the tongue cut out of another law. The chieftains met every Snorri was more circumspect in describing him, putting criticisms into summer at Thingvellir petty king who had refused to accept his to interpret the law. (23) the mouths of his opponents, one of them exclaiming: ‘But when Olaf Photo: Diego Delso. rule. A later pretender to the Norwegian felt that he was secured in his power, then no one was independent of throne, Sigurd Slembe, was tortured to death him. He went at it with us petty kings to claim in a domineering way all in an unspeakable manner.(24) The reason the dues for himself that Harold Finehair had received here, and some some commentators have overlooked or downplayed Snorri’s anti- things even more despotically.’(22) The king had this speaker blinded in royalist message in Heimskringla probably is that he rarely reveals his own personal views: he prefers to let the events speak for themselves. The style of the chronicles and sagas written in Iceland in the thirteenth (16) Ibid., Ch. 94, pp. 95–102. century, including Snorri’s works, is relentlessly objective. What people (17) The leader of the Swedish conservative-liberal party Carl Bildt in a speech on 23 August 1986, think and feel is shown by their remarks and actions. Frihetens parti (The Party of Freedom), available online, invoked the example of Lawspeaker Torgny. ‘A strong sense of justice is not unique to our country. But its role has been important in a country which has never seen slavery or serfdom and where every young student has read the words of Lawspeaker Torgny.’ Best to Do Without Kings (18) Magnus Fjalldal, Beware of Kings: Heimskringla as Propaganda, Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 85, No. 4 (2013), pp. 455–68; Birgit Sawyer, Heimskringla: An Interpretation (Tempe AZ: Arizona Center A distinction between good and bad kings runs through Snorri’s Heims­ for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2015). Norwegian historian Sverre Bagge rejects such a reading of Snorri’s Heimskringla but admits that ‘Snorri evidently regards it as very important for a king to kringla. The good kings are peaceful, keep the tax burden light and uphold treat the people in the right way and finds it natural that they react against hard exactions,’Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 140. the good, old law. The bad kings are warriors, raising taxes and conscripting (19) Heimskringla, Vol. I. The Saga of Harold Greycloak, Ch. 16, p. 135. (20) Heimskringla, Vol. I. The Saga of Olav Trygvason, Ch. 76, pp. 201–2, and Ch. 80, p. 204. (21) Ibid., Ch. 85, p. 208. (23) Ibid., Ch. 75, p. 67. (22) Heimskringla, Vol. II. The Saga of Saint Olav, Ch. 36, p. 29. (24) Heimskringla, Vol. III. The Saga of the Sons of Harold. Ch. 12, p. 196. 22 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 23 farmers for their adventures home and abroad. One comparison already course for us dwellers in this land is not to submit mentioned is between Harold Finehair and his son, Haakon, the foster- here to the taxes paid to King Olaf and all the burdens son of English king Athelstan. Under Haakon the country prospered. such as he has imposed on people in Norway. And Another comparison is between two brothers who were jointly earls of we shall be causing this deprivation of freedom not Orkney: ‘Bruce was gentle and a very compliant person, wise and eloquent only to ourselves, rather both to ourselves and our and popular. Einar was obstinate, reserved and unfriendly, impetuous sons and all our families that inhabit this land, and and avaricious and a great warrior.’­ (25) Snorri has this to say about Einar’s this bondage will never go away or disappear from rule: ‘Now there came to be famine in his realm as a result of the labour this land. So though this king may be a good man, as I and expense imposed on the farmers. But in the part of the country that firmly trust that he is, yet it will happen from now on Bruce had, there was much prosperity and an easy life for farmers. He as it has before now, when there is a change of ruler, was popular.’(26) A third example is that of Magnus, son of Olaf the Fat. that they turn out differently, some well, some badly. In the beginning of his reign, he was quite harsh, and the farmers started But if the people of this country wish to keep their grumbling. ‘Does he not remember that we have never put up with loss freedom, which they have had since this land was of our rights? He will go the same way as his father or some of the other settled, then it will be best to grant the king no foothold rulers that we have deprived of life when we got tired of their tyranny on it, either in possession of land here or by payment and lawlessness.’ An Icelandic poet at his court took it upon himself to from here of specific taxes which may be interpreted as admonish him in a poem, politely, but firmly. After this warning the king acknowledgement of allegiance. But this I declare to be changed for the better. ‘King Magnus became popular and beloved of all quite proper, that people should send the king friendly the people in the country.’(27) Inci­dentally, this last story also illustrates gifts, those who wish to, hawks or horses, hangings or another recurrent topic in Snorri’s works: the power of words, especially sails or other such things that are suitable to send. It is words of poets. Of course, Snorri saw him­self as such a poet, gently guiding making good use of these things, if they are rewarded dignitaries such as King Haakon or Earl Skuli into behaving well. by friendship. But as for Grim’s Isle, there is this to say, Snorri uses the distinction between good and bad kings to great effect if nothing is transported from there that can be used in a famous speech given in 1024 at the Althing by Einar of Thvera. King as food, then a host of men could be maintained there. Olaf the Fat had sent an Icelandic courtier of his to the Althing, asking the And if a foreign army is there and they come from there Icelanders to give him Grim’s Isle off the Northern coast of Iceland and with longships, then I think many a cottager would feel promising them his friendship in return. Einar the Farmer responded: that oppression was at hand.(28)

The reason I have had little to say about this business Clearly Snorri is here putting into the mouth of Einar from Thvera his is that no one has called upon me to speak about it. own recommendation about Iceland’s foreign policy: The Icelanders But if I am to give my opinion, then I think that the should be friends with the Norwegian king, not his subjects. The whole of Snorri’s Heimskringla can be regarded as a reaffirmation of Einar’s argument, that kings turn out differently, some well, some

(25) Heimskringla, Vol. II. The Saga of Saint Olav, Ch. 97, p. 104. (26) Ibid., Ch. 97, pp. 104–105. (28) Heimskringla, Vol. II. The Saga of Saint Olav, Ch. 125, pp. 143–144. Grimsey is here changed to (27) Heimskringla, Vol. III. The Saga of Magnus the Good, Ch. 16, p. 19. Grim’s Isle. 24 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 25

under his rule. In 1247, six years after he had had Snorri killed, he was crowned in Bergen by Cardinal William of Sabina who observed that it was improper that Iceland did not serve under a king ‘like all others in the world’.(31) While this may have lent papal authority to King Haakon’s designs on Iceland, it was somewhat odd coming from a Cardinal who some twenty years earlier had served as the Pope’s emissary to the Baltic countries, ruled by the Teutonic Order of Knights, and not by a king. Again, the Cardinal came from Italy where many city-states such as Venice and Florence had long been established, not serving under any king. Meanwhile, Snorri’s Heimskringla seems to have had an impact in Iceland where vellum copies of it went from one farm to another to be eagerly read by the farmers and their families, often aloud for all the household on dark winter nights. This is shown by two events taking place in 1255, fourteen years after Snorri’s assassination. One of the In his pool at Reykholt, Snorri contenders for power in Iceland, the chieftain Thorvard Thorarinsson, entertained guests with tales badly, so it is best to have no king. It is an early about kings and poets of the asked an assembly of farmers at Djupadalsa in Eyjafjord for acceptance version of Sir Karl Popper’s argument that past. A natural hot spring, as their ruler. One of the farmers, Thorvard Thordson from Saurbaer it is still called Snorri’s Pool we have to design our institutions in such a (Snorralaug). Photo: Wikipedia in Eyjafjord, responded: ‘I can put up with a chieftain if he is already way that bad rulers do the least harm.(29) In TommyBee. here, but best of all would be to have none.’(32) The same year, one of his efforts to annex Iceland, King Olaf the the Sturlungs, the chieftain Thorgils Bodvarsson (grandson of Snorri’s Fat did not give up, however. In 1028, as Snorri describes, the king took brother), met local farmers at Vallalaug in Skagafjord and asked them to four Icelandic hostages in Norway and sent one of them to Iceland with accept him as their ruler. One of the farmers, Broddi Thorleifsson from the message that he wanted the Icelanders to accept the laws that he Hof, wearily said: ‘If I have to serve a chieftain, I would prefer Thorgils had laid down in Norway and to pay to him weregilds (compensation for most of all, but it would be better to serve none if I could rule myself.’ property damage, including lives and injuries) and a poll-tax, a penny Both Thorvard and Broddi echoed the speech on kings by Einar from for every nose. In return he promised his friendship, but otherwise he Thvera, written by Snorri. They must have read it in Heimskringla. threatened ‘harsh treatment, as much as he was able to inflict’. The The two Icelandic farmers were however defending a lost cause, as Ice­landers sat a long time discussing this ‘offer’—or threat—but finally they probably knew themselves. After internal struggles in Iceland, agreed unanimously to refuse it.(30) As King Olaf was shortly thereafter Snorri’s killer, Gissur Thorvaldsson, was appointed Earl of Iceland by driven into exile, nothing came out of this. King Haakon, and in 1262 he managed by a combination of promises and The Icelanders were less fortunate in Snorri’s own time. King threats to cajole the reluctant and suspicious Icelanders into becoming Haakon IV was as determined as Olaf the Fat before him to bring Iceland

(31) Sturla Thordson, Hakonar Saga, Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles, Vol. II, ed. by Gudbrand Vigfusson (29) Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I (London: George Routledge, 1945), Ch. 7. (London: Eyre and Spottiswood, 1887), p. 252. (30) Heimskringla, Vol. II. The Saga of Saint Olav, Ch. 136, p. 160. (32) Sturlunga Saga, Thorgils saga skarda, Ch. 54, pp. 446–447. 26 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 27 subjects of the Norwegian king. Although Iceland at the time seems to powerful Icelandic landowning class, impeding the development of the fit the definition of a nation,(33) it was probably fear of excessive taxation potentially profitable fisheries, hindering free trade with other countries rather than a national sentiment which motivated the opposition to the and the formation of urban areas. Surrounded by some of the most fertile Norwegian demands. In the so-called ‘Old Covenant’, the Icelanders fishing grounds in the world, for centuries the Icelanders were doomed agreed to pay an annual tribute to the Norwegian king, but insisted on to poverty and starvation.(35) maintaining their own law and on their right to renounce the agreement if its stipulations were not fulfilled. An Assertive Individual Against a King It is an intriguing question whether in the thirteenth century the Icelanders could have kept their independence. Was Snorri’s political Snorri Sturluson was an accomplished writer, as Egil’s Saga, his bio­ programme—to be friends and not subjects of the Norwegian king— graphy of—or perhaps historical novel about—his forefather, Egil Skalla­ unfeasible? Was the Old Covenant inevitable? In fact, King Haakon died grimsson, shows. The saga has two main themes. One of them is the feud on an expedition to Scotland a year after the Old Covenant had been between Egil’s family and the Norwegian royal family after the conquest accepted. Thus, if the Icelanders had held out one or two more years, of Norway by Harold Finehair. The canny old Norwegian landowner then some of the pressure from Norway might have eased off. The Ice­ Kveldulf refuses both to support and to oppose the new king, but advises landers might however also have had to reduce their total dependence his two sons, Thorolf and Grim, against serving him. Thorolf nevertheless on Norway in matters of foreign trade: the Norwegian king could, and decides to join the king’s force. While Thorolf proves a valiant fighter, sometimes did, force the Icelanders into obedience by forbidding trade his enemies spread slander about him. King Harold Finehair believes with them. This would by no means have been impossible, as a market for them and dismisses him. Two of the king’s men seize a ship belonging Icelandic stockfish was opening up in Europe. A military expedition to to Thorolf, and he reciprocates by pillaging their farm and killing their Iceland would also have been problematic: While the island might have brothers. The king subsequently has Thorolf killed. Kveldulf and Grim been relatively easy to conquer, it would have been difficult to retain. The ask the king for compensation, but when Grim refuses to join him at the example of another European country without a king, Switzerland, may court, the king angrily rejects their request. In 891, father and son decide be relevant in this context. In 1291, three poor and sparsely populated to emigrate to Iceland, but on the way they take revenge for Thorolf by mountain cantons made a pact to establish the Swiss Commonwealth, killing some of the king’s men. Kveldulf dies at sea, but Grim establishes Eidgenossenschaft, reaffirmed in an oath taken by their representatives a big farm at Borg. He is totally bald and is therefore called Skallagrim in 1307. In the next few centuries Switzerland was able to withstand in Icelandic (skalli means bald head). He has two sons, Thorolf and Egil. several attempts by royal neighbours to subdue her, slowly expanding As a young man, Thorolf Skallagrimsson decides to visit old friends of and turning into one of the freest, stablest and most prosperous the family in Norway and then to become a viking. He fights under King countr­ies in the world.(34) Iceland, alas, followed a different path for six Harold’s son, Eric Blood-Axe, and briefly returns to Iceland in 926. centuries. Trying to maintain control of the remote island at any cost, When Thorolf returns to Norway in 927, Egil who is now 17 years old the Norwegian, and later Danish, king allied himself with the small and accompanies him. He is big, strong and assertive and has already started to compose poems. He runs into King Eric in a place called Atli’s Isle,

(33) As Theodore M. Andersson points out, The Sagas of Norwegian Kings (1130–1265): An Introduction (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2016), p. 161. (35) Thrainn Eggertsson, No Experiments, Monumental Disasters. Why it Took a Thousand Years to (34) Robert Nef, In Praise of Non-Centralism (Zürich: Liberales Institut, 2004); Jonathan Steinberg, Develop A Specialized Fishing Industry in Iceland, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Why Switzerland? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Vol. 30, No. 1 (1996), pp. 1–24. 28 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 29

and manages in a drunken brawl to kill the king’s steward, and during his subsequent flight from the place he kills or maims three more of the king’s men. While the king eventually accepts compensation for his men, he orders Egil to leave Norway. After participating in some viking raids, Thorolf and Egil go to England and join the force of King Athelstan. In a battle between English and Scottish forces in 937, Thorolf is killed. A year later, in 938, Egil leaves the service of King Athelstan and heads to Norway where Asgerd Bjornsdaughter, the widow of his brother, lives. He marries her and they go to Iceland and live at Borg. A few years later Asgerd’s father, who had been a wealthy landowner, dies. Egil and Asgerd go to Norway to claim their inheritance. But Asgerd’s half-brother, a friend of King Eric, refuses to hand over her share, with the support of the king. The king’s men seize a ship belonging to Egil and kill some of his men, while Egil manages to kill the king’s helmsman. He goes to the farm of Asgerd’s half-brother and kills him and some of his men, and on his way from it he runs into one of King Eric’s sons, Rognvald, and kills him and his men. Before leaving Norway, he sets up a scorn-pole against King Eric, calling on the nature spirits of the land to drive him out. He returns to Iceland in 946, but spends only two years there before going to England to meet King Athelstan. His ship runs aground in the mouth of the Humber, in a territory ruled by King Eric who has by now been driven out of Norway. Egil has to pay a visit to his old adversary who wants to have him beheaded. But an old friend of both Egil and the king, Knight Arinbjorn, suggests that Egil should compose a poem in praise of King Eric. After Egil has delivered the poem, the king tells him that he can keep his head, but that he must never cross his path again. Appropriately, the poem is called ‘Head’s Ransom’. After some further adventures, Egil settles down at Borg in Iceland. When two of his sons die, he composes Medieval states need not be ruled a long poem in their memory, ‘Lament for My Sons’. He also composes by kings, as showed in Switzerland, whose foundation in 1291 was a poem to honour a Norwegian friend of his, Knight Arinbjorn, who had reaffirmed in 1307 when an oath stayed loyal to him through his various romps. Egil passes away in 990. was taken by representatives of the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and If the feud between the families of Egil and the Norwegian kings is Unterwalden. Painting by Jean one of the main themes in Egil’s Saga, then the other one is individuality, Renggli, Oath at Rütli (Rütlischwur). exemplified by its larger-than-life chief protagonist, Egil. In the Middle Ages, Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt famously observed, ‘Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or 30 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 31 corporation — only through some general category. In Italy this veil first one of the protagonists expresses his intention of moving to Iceland melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the state and where ‘men are free from the assaults of kings and criminals’.(39) The of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the Saga of Hord and the People of Holm also begins in no uncertain terms: same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spirited individual, and recognized himself as such.’ Burckhardt Most of Iceland was settled in the days of Harold added that ‘at the close of the 13th century, Italy began to swarm with Finehair. People would not endure his oppression and individuality; the ban laid upon human personality was dissolved; and tyranny, especially those who belonged to aristocratic a thousand figures meet us each in its own special shape and dress.’(36) families and who had ambition and good prospects. Snorri’s Egil certainly steps out of any general cate­gory and meets us They would rather leave their property in Norway than in his own special shape and dress. Avaricious and violent, sometimes suffer aggression and injustice—whether from a king or grotesque, he is also capable of composing fine and sensitive poems from anyone else.(40) about his secret love of his brother’s widow, the loss of his sons, his appreciation of a loyal friend and the ravages of old age. Not content with While the Icelandic sagas are not as well known as, say, Homer’s epics, staying at home, Egil travels to Norway and England and participates few would deny that they are an important contribution to Western in Vikings raids in the Baltic countries and elsewhere. He is a tenth civilisation, having inspired eminent writers such as John R. R. century cosmopolitan. Therefore, perhaps it was in Iceland rather than Tolkien and Jorge Luis Borges, not to mention Nordic authors such in Italy that the ‘veil of collective consciousness’ first melted into air. as Esaias Tegnér, Nikolaj F. S. Grundtvig and Henrik Ibsen. Tolkien, As Icelandic scholar Sigurdur Nordal writes, Egil ‘is the first man in the a Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, told his colleagues history of the Germanic peoples who describes himself in his own words, that their students should read less of Shakespeare and more of Snorri from his outer appearance to his innermost thoughts’.(37) Sturluson,(41) and Borges composed an elegy in Spanish about Snorri Snorri wrote Egil’s Saga after he had returned in 1239 from his second and his death.(42) The so-called ‘Tales of the Icelanders’ which are much trip to Norway which explains why this saga is overtly more hostile to shorter than the sagas also display wariness of kings. Many of them are the Norwegian kings than Heimskringla. By now, King Haakon regarded about clever Icelanders who have confrontations with Norwegian or Snorri as an enemy, and Snorri may have given up the hope of remaining Danish kings and usually outwit them or offer pithy and unfavourable the king’s friend without becoming his subject. Egil’s Saga is the first of comments about them.(43) the great ‘Sagas of the Icelanders’ so it is hardly an exaggeration to say Why were the Icelanders, a tiny nation on a windswept island far away that Snorri laid the foundations of a remarkable literary tradition shortly from the European mainland, able to create such exceptional literature? before his own untimely death.(38) Indeed, in many other Icelandic sagas, kings are viewed with the same scepticism and even hostility as in Egil’s (39) The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, Vol. IV (Reykjavik: Leifur Eiriksson, 1997). The Saga of the Saga. In the Saga of the People of Vatnsdal (Water Valley), for example, People of Vatnsdal, Ch. 10, p. 15. (40) Complete Sagas, Vol. II. The Saga of Hord and the People of Holm, Ch. 1, p. 193. (41) Nancy Marie Brown, Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths (New York: (36) Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), tran. by S. G. C. Middlemore Palgrave, 2012), p. ix. (London: Penguin, 1990), p. 98. (42) Jorge Luis Borges, Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241), El otro, el mismo (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1969), p. (37) Sigurdur Nordal, Icelandic Culture (1942), tran. by Vilhjalmur T. Bjarnar (Ithaca NY: Cornell 149. University Library, 1990), p. 115. (43) Examples might be The Tale of Audun from the West Fjords and The Tale of Thorvard Crow’s- (38) Jonas Kristjansson, Var Snorri Sturluson upphafsmadur Islendingasagna? [Was Snorri Sturluson Beak, The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, Vol. I, pp. 369–373 and 397–400, respectively; and the Tale of the Pioneer in Writing Sagas of Icelanders?], Andvari, Vol. 32 (1990), pp. 85–105. Halldor Snorrason, Vol. V, pp. 219–222. 32 Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 33

assertion of both nationality and individuality.(46) This may also partly explain how and why Snorri Sturluson in Heimskringla and Egil’s Saga expressed many of the ideas later associated with the Whig tradition in British politics: that law should be formed by consultation rather than stipulation; that government should be by consent, not by the grace of God; that there was in place an implicit social contract between the people and the sovereign and that the people could depose the sovereign if he violated that contract; and that man could be defined not only by some general category, but had to be conceived of also as an individual who had acquired the ability and will to make his or her own choices.(47)

A part of the single surviving The life of Snorri Sturluson certainly provides page from a manuscript of one mundane answer. He was a rich man, and Snorri’s Heimskringla, dated around 1260. In the Middle his wealth enabled him not only to write, but Ages, only the wealthy could produce books. The also to produce books. This was no easy task manuscripts of Iceland’s in his time. The production of just a copy of ancient sagas, chronicles and poems are considered an Icelandic saga would have cost the equi­ a national treasure. Photo: valent of at least £10,000 in modern money. National Library of Iceland. Calves had to be reared and slaughtered to provide the parchment on which it would be written; berries had to be collected out of which to make the ink; a scribe had to be employed, or at least fed, clothed and lodged, for some months to make the copy.(44) Thus, Snorri’s example may strengthen one argument for a leisure class: that it makes possible cultural achievements that otherwise would not exist. Another possible answer may be weightier. Many of the Icelandic sagas were written in a period when the Icelanders were becoming (46) Individuality as constitutive of Western man is an idea eloquently expressed in Michael aware of Norwegian expansionism, in the mid-thirteenth century. They Oakeshott’s political thought, discussed later in this book. The warrior-poet Egil Skallagrimsson, for example, is an assertive individual such as Oakeshott envisages. Arguably, the Icelandic felt the need to express their own identity, tell the story of how and Commonwealth has some features of a civil association in Oakeshott’s sense, as described in On why they separated from Norway and grew into a nation.(45) Thus, the Human Conduct (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). It was an association of individuals united in acknowledgement of non-instrumental principles, the law. This association implied rules about how sagas may have been a political response to Norwegian aggression, an to do things, but not about what things to do. This applied even to manslaughter. If you killed a man for a cogent reason and did not try to hide it, you were guilty of a slaying, and you could try to negotiate a settlement with the victim’s family. But if you tried to hide what you had done, you were guilty of murder, a much more serious violation of the law. (47) Individuality in the Icelandic sagas is by no means confined to males. A few of the original settlers were strong-willed women, such as Aud the Deep-Minded and Steinunn the Old. Some of the chief (44) Apparently, a famous Icelandic manuscript, Flateyjarbok, required 113 calves for its production. protagonists in the sagas are also women. Indeed, I argue that some sagas should have been named Sigurdur Nordal, Time and Vellum, Annual Bulletin of the Modern Humanities Research Association, after these women. For example, ‘The Saga of the People of Salmon Valley’ should have been called Vol. 24 (1952), pp. 15–26. The Saga of Gudrun. Cf. my condensations in English of three sagas, The Saga of Gudrun: Her Four Husbands and Her True Love (Reykjavik: Almenna bokafelagid, 2017) and The Saga of Gudrid: The (45) Theodore M. Andersson, The King of Iceland, Speculum, Vol. 74, No. 4 (1999), pp. 923–934. Icelandic Discovery of America (Reykjavik: Almenna bokafelagid, 2019). 34 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) 35

St. Thomas Aquinas

(1225–1274)

hen totalitarianism descended on the European continent in its two guises, national socialism and communism, Wduring the twentieth century, the almost sole internal resistance to it was put up by the Christian churches, even if it was eventually fought off by the joint forces of the Anglo-Saxon powers and, in the case of communism, also defeated by its own long-term economic unsustainability. Certainly, totalitarianism and Christianity are incompatible. Whereas totalitarianism constitutes an attempt to control the mind no less than the body, as George Orwell uncannily brought out in his dystopia, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Christianity involves a belief in the sacredness of every human being, and a distinction between spiritual and temporal affairs, between what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar. Indeed, in the great struggle of the late Middle Ages between religious and secular authorities, such as the Guelphs and the Ghibellines in Italy, some of the ideas commonly associated with the political tradition of conservative liberalism were developed by Christian philosophers. ‘But although liberty was not the end for which they strove, it was the means by which the temporal and the spiritual power called the nations to their aid.’(1) The most distinguished of these Christian philosophers, the Dominican friar St. Thomas Aquinas, argued that the ruler was not above the law and that if he was unfaithful to his duty and violated the law then he had forfeited his claim to obedience and could be deposed. But it was better to abridge his power so that he would Aquinas teaches that princes be unable to abuse it. The whole nation ought to have a share in governing are under the same law as their subjects and that they can be deposed if they violate this law. Painting by Sandro Botticelli. (1) Lord Acton, The History of Freedom in Christianity, Selected Writings of Lord Acton, Vol. I, ed. by J. Rufus Fears (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1985), p. 33. 36 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 37 itself, and no government should have a right to levy taxes beyond the there­fore thought little of him. But Albertus exclaimed: ‘You call him a limit determined by the people. This was, in the words of Lord Acton, Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox will bellow so loud that his bellowing ‘the earliest exposition of the Whig theory of the revolution’.(2) Another will fill the world.’(5) Catholic, G. K. Chesterton, agreed, observing that around Aquinas there Thomas taught for four years in Cologne and then returned in was an atmosphere ‘of believing in breadth and balance and debate’.(3) 1252 to Paris. He was appointed master in theology at the University of Paris in 1256 and returned three years later to Italy where he lived The Life and Works of St. Thomas first in Naples and then in Orvieto, completing one of his major works, Summa contra Gentiles (Arguments against Unbelievers). In 1265 he was Thomas was born in the castle of his father, Count Landulf of Aquino, sum­moned to Rome by the Pope and served as papal theologian, also close to the town of Aquino in Central Italy, in 1225. The count was teaching at a convent. In Rome he began his best-known work, Summa related to and a vassal of the Hohenstaufen kings of Sicily. Thomas’ theologica­ (Arguments in Theology). The Dominicans sent him to Paris mother Theodora also came from a noble family. His paternal uncle was in 1268 where he took up his former position as master in theology at abbot of the monastery at Monte Cassino, and when Thomas was five the University, this time becoming embroiled in various philosophical years old he went to school there, but in 1239 he moved to the newly disputes, both between Dominicans and Franciscans and between the established university in Naples to continue his studies. He was bookish, Aristotelians and their opponents. Thomas was known as a disciple of serious and intensely religious, and when he was nineteen he decided to Aristotle, trying to reconcile his theories with Christian theology. First join the recently founded Dominican Order and to leave Naples for Paris. and foremost, however, he was a defender of Christianity against non- His family disagreed strongly with his decision to become a ‘begging believers and heretics. Once, King Lewis IX of France (Saint Louis) friar’, had him kidnapped on his way and held prisoner in their castles invited him to a banquet. Normally, Thomas preferred to spend his for almost a year. Once his brothers, in the hope of turning his mind to time among his beloved­ books, but his Dominican superiors told him to worldly affairs, introduced a courtesan into his room. This was the only accept. At the banquet, he sat silent in the midst of the gaiety, deep in his time during his captivity that the normally mild-mannered Thomas lost thoughts. But sud­den­ly, the great table shook, for the friar had brought his composure. He sprang from his seat, snatched a brand out of the fire down his huge fist and cried out in a loud voice: ‘And that will settle the and stood wielding it like a flaming sword. The woman shrieked and fled. Manichees!’ He had thought of new arguments against the Manichees, a He strode after her to the door and banged it, ramming the brand into sect which believed life to be a fight between good and evil forces. Instead the door, blackening and blistering it with one black sign of the cross.(4) of taking offence at this interruption, the king instructed his secretaries Finally, the family relented and released him. He went to Paris in 1245, to sit around the absent-minded scholar and take down notes about the where he was taught by the distinguished Dominican scholar Albertus arguments.­ (6) Magnus. He moved with his teacher to Cologne in 1248. Thomas was In 1272 Thomas went again to Italy where he established a school in quite big, but quiet and withdrawn, and some of his fellow students Naples, teaching there and continuing to work on the Summa theologica. On the way to a Church Council in Lyon in 1274 Thomas fell ill. He passed away on 7 March 1274, leaving the Summa uncompleted. Shortly after his (2) Ibid., p. 34. Arguably, though, Snorri Sturluson was the ‘First Whig’, as I describe in the first chapter of this book. (3) G. K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas: ‘The Dumb Ox’ (Nashville TN: Sam Torode Book Arts, 2010 [1933]), p. 104. (5) Ibid., p. 33. (4) Ibid., p. 30. (6) Ibid., p. 51. 38 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 39 death, the Bishop of Paris condemned some of his arguments for their Aristotelian slant. But his reputation improved slowly and surely. He was canonized in 1323, and in an 1879 papal encyclical, his theology was pronounced to be a definitive exposition of Catholic doctrine.

Natural Law and Its Content

In political philosophy, Aquinas is best known for his theory of law which severely circumscribes the power of the ruler. Human law has to be in accordance with natural law, according to him. It is not a series of commands by a ruler, backed up by force. Instead, it is ‘an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated’.(7) If law does not fulfil these four conditions, then it is not law, but something else, perhaps only a scrap of paper; it has no validity at all; it is not even bad or unjust law. Most people Aquinas and the Thomists would agree with Aquinas that a law which has not been promulgated make a crucial distinction essentially depriving them of all civil rights, between justice and and is therefore unknown to the people subject to it, can hardly be called generosity: between what or a law prescribing racial segregation in one can demand from others a law. The same can be said about a law which has not been passed by the and what one may hope South Africa during the 1948–1994 Apartheid proper authorities, although Aquinas certainly recognises the existence for. Painting by Joachim regime, for example prohibiting marriages Beuckelaer, The Fish Market. and validity of customary law. But the two first conditions that the law between individuals of different races. These should be an ordinance of reason and for the common good may seem are both real examples from modern times. less persuasive, at least to proponents of a greater role for a legislative Are we obliged to obey them? But legal positivists from Thrasymachus body. An example of an unreasonable law might be if a ruler commands in Ancient Greece to Hobbes and Bentham and onwards would reject his soldiers to become healthy, as they lie sick in an epidemic. But why Aquinas’ characterisation of such laws as not being in fact laws. They would a law against polygamy among Mormons in the United States be would say that of course they were laws, as they were passed by the an ordinance of reason? Aquinas would reply that polygamy goes against proper authorities, enforced by them and obeyed by those subject to human reason. Others might disagree. In Paraguay after a disastrous war them, but that they might on the other hand be bad or unjust laws. They in the nineteenth century which left the male population decimated, would say that it had to be clear what the law was, irrespective of whether apparently the Catholic Church temporarily granted an informal it was good or bad, and that this could not be done with any certainty in dispensation allowing polygamy in order to increase the population. the natural law tradition, since reason and the common good were both An example of a law that would definitely not be an ordinance of contested concepts, meaning different things to different men.(8) reason for the common good in Aquinas’ sense would be a German The problem with legal positivism which sets little or no conditions, law discriminating against Jews under the Nazi rule in 1933–1945, constraints or material requirements on the content of the law, and only

(7) St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, tran. by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 2nd (8) John Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, ed. by W. E. Rumble (Cambridge: rev. ed. (London: 1912–1936), Bk. II, Pt. I, q. 90, §4. Cambridge University Press, 1995 [1832]). 40 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 41 on its form, is however that it becomes difficult or even impossible to mutual forbearance; limited resources which have the same effect; and resolve adequately certain cases which nevertheless seem clear. Legal limited understanding and strength of will, making sanctions on anti- positivists can hardly say that the Nazis depriving Jews of all civil rights social behaviour inevitable.(11) As Hart recognises himself, this theory in Germany or the Boers segregating the races in South Africa were about the ‘minimum content of natural law’ is not too different from acting unlawfully, provided that these two ruling groups took care to Hume’s deduction of the principles of justice from basic facts of human fulfil all formal conditions for their legislation. Aquinas on the other life, such as the niggardliness of nature and the selfishness of man. hand has a criterion with which to reject these laws completely, not even Hart’s attempt to identify the ‘minimum content of natural law’, recognising them as law. His concept of the law thus provides protection basing it on human nature, is plausible and illuminating. But society is to powerless, persecuted or marginal groups like the Jews in Nazi about more than survival. Aquinas himself emphasises that the crucial Germany and the Blacks, Coloured and Indians in South Africa under part of human nature is reason: In order to be law, it has to be an ordinance Apartheid. It is perhaps also not as difficult as legal positivists claim of reason for the common good. There may be some boundary problems to define the concepts of reason and the common good which should involved with making human reason the basis for natural law. Whose constrain the content of valid law. Thomists may not be guilty of the common good is under discussion? Who are supposed to have reason? ‘naturalistic fallacy’ of deriving values from facts even if they recognise Not only ordinary working and law-abiding citizens, but also groups that certain constraints on the content of valid law. A modern Thomist, seem to lack important elements of reason, such as children, the old and Oxford philosopher John Finnis, has pointed out that some things are the mentally unstable? What about man’s nearest relatives, the apes? almost universally accepted as basic goods, necessary for a life worth Or possible intelligent beings on other planets? Leaving such problems living: these are life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, sociability aside, perhaps the economic theories of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich of friendship, practical reasonableness and religion.(9) Respect for these von Hayek can serve considerably to extend the ‘minimum content of basic goods would be a requirement for valid law. natural law’, as Hart conceives of it. Essentially, Mises and Hayek argue While neither Finnis’ list of basic goods nor his application of it to that economic principles would disqualify traditional socialism, in the practical cases are above criticism,(10) it should be noted that another sense of central economic planning, from being a feasible system for Oxford philosopher, by no means a conservative or a Thomist, Professor arranging the production and distribution of material goods. The rules Herbert Hart, has pointed out another way of recognising constraints on in such a system would never be able to draw upon all the knowledge the content of law. Hart plausibly makes it his premise that society is not and special skills dispersed among the citizens, and they could therefore a suicide club. Arguing from that, he thinks that there are five features never achieve their stated aims of social reforms, for example the of the human condition which have to be taken into account for a legal alleviation of poverty, irrespective of the desirability of such reforms.(12) system to be feasible: physical vulnerability and the danger of bodily Hayek actually goes further and argues that if capitalism, with its attack; approximate equality between human beings, creating the need division of labour and free movement of capital, goods and services for mutual forbearance; limited altruism which strengthens the need for across borders, would be abandoned, only a fraction of the people living now on the planet could survive. If people are to avail themselves of the

(9) John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). (10) For example, Stephen Macedo, Against the Old Sexual Morality of the New Natural Law, Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality, ed. by Robert P. George (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). An interesting (11) Herbert L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961). discussion followed between Finnis and Macedo, on somewhat similar lines as a celebrated debate between H. L. A. Hart and Judge Patrick Devlin in the 1960s: Do same-sex relationships threaten the (12) Ludwig von Mises, Die Gemeinwirtschaft: Untersuchungen über den Sozialismus (Jena: social fabric, or might they in fact strengthen it? The experience of the last decades seems to favour the Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1922); Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, tran. by J. Kahane case made by Hart and Macedo. (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1981). 42 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 43 social reason embodied in a dynamic and competitive system of private property rights and free trade where knowledge is both transmitted and generated and individual plans are adjusted, then they have to accept this system. If law is to be ‘an ordinance of reason for the common good’, as Aquinas puts it, it has to be based on private property, free trade and unfettered competition.(13) Americans could say in their savvy way that capitalism remains the only game in town.

Rights of Resistance

If there are strict constraints on the content of valid law, as Aquinas argues, then what happens if the legislator or the ruler does not respect them and proclaims laws that go against the natural law? Or if he becomes a tyrant? In De regimine principum (On Kingship), Aquinas discusses the case when tyranny becomes so extreme as to be intolerable. He rejects the The premise of the 1946 notion that it is justified to kill the tyrant, at least on somebody’s private Nuremberg trials over Nazi inflicting a more grievous hurt. They can leaders was that there is a presumption.(14) Anticipating Burke’s critique of the French Revolution, natural law valid for every even actively resist them.(16) As an expert ‘What is more likely to come of such presumption,’ Aquinas warns, ‘is human being. on Aquinas remarks: ‘His remarks, taken peril to the community through the loss of a king than relief through together, add up to an intelligible position of the removal of a tyrant.’(15) It is crucial, he argues, to use the recognised cautious conservatism which recognises that extreme measures may be channels to depose a tyrant. In Summa Theologica, Aquinas returns to justified sometimes but should be avoided if at all possible.’(17) the problem. He points out that laws may be unjust in two ways. First, These are not only abstract speculations. If Martin Luther King they may be contrary to the common good, for example when the ruler had been a legal positivist, how could he have advocated and organised puts unnecessary and unequal burdens on his subjects; or when he civil disobedience in protest against discriminatory laws? I shall take a goes beyond the authority vested in him; or when they are not correctly more mundane example from my own experience. In the 1874 Icelandic formulated and promulgated. Or they can be unjust through being Constitution, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly were opposed to the Divine good, such as a law inducing people to idolatry. guaranteed. In the twentieth century, however, by law broadcasting became It is quite clear that in the latter case people have no duty to obey the the monopoly of a government agency, the National Broadcasting Service, laws. But in the case when laws inflict unjust hurt on the subjects, they NBS. For many years, I argued that the constitutional statutes guaranteeing are also not bound to obey them, provided they avoid giving scandal or freedom of the press and freedom of assembly should be interpreted more

(13) Friedrich A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vols. I–III (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973–1979). (16) Summa, Bk. II, Part I, Q. 96, §4. Here the translation by R. W. Dyson in St Thomas Aquinas: Political Writings, p. 145, is more accurate than that of the Dominican Fathers: ‘so a man is not obliged (14) In an early work, he seems however to join Cicero in praising those who slew Caesar because he to obey the law in such cases, if he can resist [resistere] doing so without scandal or worse harm’. The had usurped power. Scripta super libros sententiarum, Bk. II, Ch. 44, Q. 2, St Thomas Aquinas: Political Latin verb ‘resistere’ is stronger than for example defugere, vitare or declinere, as Dyson observes. It Writings, tran. and ed. by R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 73. signals resistance rather than mere avoidance or passive disobedience. (15) De Regimine principum, Ch. VII, St Thomas Aquinas: Political Writings, p. 19. (17) Dyson, Introduction, St Thomas Aquinas: Political Writings, p. xxx. 44 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 45 generally as protecting freedom of expression—that this was the logical basis 1986, the Supreme Court confirmed the judgement of a lower court that of the statutes. It was the letter of the Constitution which was antiquated, we were guilty of violating the law on broadcasting and gave us small fines. not its spirit: The means of expression known to nineteenth century In the meantime, as a result of a public outcry after the police had closed lawgivers were just through the printing press or meetings, whereas in the down our station, Parliament had passed a law abolishing the monopoly 1970s and 1980s, new technology greatly facilitated the operation of radio of broadcasting enjoyed by the National Broadcasting Service. Iceland’s and television stations. The newspapers in Iceland were privately owned largest political party, the Independence Party, strongly supported us, and run. Why should broadcasting be any different? Even if it might be said whereas the other parties in Parliament were divided on the issue. that the law granting a monopoly to the NBS was unjust in Aquinas’ sense, While a legal positivist would reject our legal arguments, like the and in conflict with another and higher law, the Icelandic Constitution, Icelandic judges did,(19) a Thomist might find them acceptable. We knew this was probably not according to his theory a sufficient ground for that we were violating the law, but we believed that it was an unjust disobedience. But in the autumn of 1984, Iceland found herself in a rather law and that our disobedience was justified. First, the law granting unusual situation. Journalists had been on strike for a while so that no monopoly of broadcasting to a certain agency, and its staff, might not be in newspapers or magazines came out. The Association of Public Employees, accordance with the common good, as required by Aquinas. It might even of which the staff of the NBS were members, had announced a strike on 4 go against it, by only considering some interests, while disregarding the October. In Iceland, salaries of public employees are paid in advance, on the interests of potential broadcasters and their audiences. Secondly, this law first of each month for that month. In these circumstances, with the strike might conflict with another and higher law, the Icelandic Constitution, pre-announced, the Treasury however did not pay out in advance the whole as we argued. Freedom of broadcasting might form a part of the general salary for the month of October. The staff of the NBS, led by militant left- freedom of expression protected by the Constitution like freedom of the wingers, decided to walk out in protest on 1 October. All broadcasting ceased press and freedom of assembly. In the third place, the Icelandic public had with the consequence that there were no means of mass communication forcibly been deprived of all news reports by the strikers, and this in itself available in the country. Silence fell over Iceland. constituted a threat to public order. In a modern society, used to a steady In this situation, I and a few of my friends decided to start operating a flow of information, this was a highly undesirable situation. It was the small radio station, providing much-needed news reports to the country. militant strikers who threatened violence, not us. Fourthly, we voluntarily The first broadcasts were on 2 October. The strikers, especially the NBS provided a service to those who wanted to take advantage of it, leaving staff, were outraged by our initiative and strongly encouraged the police to everybody else alone. People had to turn on their radios and find our close down our station. On the other hand, we enjoyed widespread public bandwidth in order to listen to our broadcasts. Fifthly, our position that support. Technicians at the National Telephone Company were granted the broadcasting monopoly was an anomaly was eventually accepted by an exemption from the strike so that they could use their equipment to Parliament. Nobody, except perhaps the NBS staff, regarded us as having try and locate our transmitter. Finally, after a chase of eight days, the committed a reprehensible act: police found the transmitter and closed down our radio station.(18) The staff of the NBS reported us to the Public Prosecutor for violating the Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason? law on broadcasting, whereupon he decided to lay a charge against us. In For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

(18) At least one other radio station started operating a day later than did ours, while it was closed (19) Icelandic judges were much influenced by Danish jurisprudence, in particular by left-winger Alf down on the same day by the police, 10 October 1984. But strangely, those operators were not reported Ross, disciple of Austrian legal philosopher Hans Kelsen. Alf Ross, Om ret og retfærdighed (København: to the Public Prosecutor and were never charged. Arnold Busck, 1953), On Law and Justice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959). 46 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 47

have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.’(20) Aquinas believes that private property is necessary for three reasons. First, every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all. Everybody’s business becomes nobody’s business. Secondly, human affairs are conducted in a more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there would be confusion if everyone had to look after any one thing indeterminately. Thirdly, a more peaceful state is ensured to man if each one is contented with his own. Quarrels arise more frequently, Aquinas observes, where there is no division of the things possessed,(21) such as branding cattle or fencing off land. This last observation has been expressed in the famous adage: ‘Good fences With some friends (here Elin make good neighbours.’ So little difference did the judgement against Hirst, later television journalist), Even if Aquinas may not believe that private property rights are I ran a ‘pirate’ radio station in us make that one of my co-defendants, Kjart­ October 1984, after strikers natural rights, so that they would be general, absolute and valid at all had shut down all newspapers an Gunnarsson, was soon thereafter appoint­ in Iceland as well as radio and times, and that the rich man has a moral duty to help the poor, he is ed Chairman of the Broadcasting Licence television. As a consequence not necessarily a redistributionist in the modern sense, as some have of our action, government (22) Com­mission set up after the abolition of monopoly in broadcasting was suggested. It is quite different when a rich man chooses to help the the government monopoly of broadcasting. abolished. I argued on Thomist poor of his own accord and when government forcibly taxes people principles that ours had been Another associate in operating the radio justified disobedience. who create wealth in order to redistribute the catch (or booty) in some station, Bjorn Bjarnason, became in 1995 way, perhaps allegedly to the poor, but often in fact to those who are Min­ister of Education and Culture, and thus best organised and most powerful politically, while not necessarily in charge of the NBS. A third associate, Elin Hirst, even served as director morally most deserving.(23) Moreover, Aquinas emphasises that the of NBS television news in 2002–2008. So, in the language of Aquinas, burdens which it is necessary to place on the ruler’s subjects should our disobedience of the outdated law on broadcasting did not cause any be distributed fairly. This might imply for example that progressive scandal and it did not inflict a hurt on anyone. taxation would be unjust.(24) In the Ottoman Empire, Christians paid

A Defence of Private Property (20) Genesis, 1, 26. Aquinas, Summa, Bk. II, Pt. II, Qu. 66, §1. In his discussion of law, Aquinas provides a cogent defence of private (21) Aquinas, Summa, Bk. II, Pt. II, Qu. 66, §2. property. He says that man has a natural dominion over external things, (22) Dyson, Introduction, St Thomas Aquinas: Political Writings, p. xxxii. because, by his reason and will, he is able to use them for his own profit, (23) George J. Stigler, Director’s Law of Public Income Redistribution, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1970), pp. 1–10. Put simply, this ‘Law’ states that redistribution made by politicians will as they were made on his account. Thus, the possession of external things tend to favour groups with the greatest ability to influence those very politicians, and such groups will not necessarily be the good or the poor. is natural to man. In support of this, Aquinas quotes God’s decision in (24) Walter J. Blum and Harry J. Kalven, Jr., The Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation, University of Genesis: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them Chicago Law Review, Vol. 19 (1952), pp. 417–520. 48 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 49 a higher rate of tax than Muslims. In modern times, high-income according to the Roman lawyer Cicero. There has been a famine on earners pay a much higher proportion of their income than people Rhodos. A merchant from Alexandria arrives in a ship heavily laden with low income who contribute little or nothing to the treasury of with wheat. He expects more merchants to be on their way to the island their countries. because he could see their sails on the distant horizon. The question While Aquinas supports private property rights, he takes the same is whether the merchant has to reveal this to the islanders. It would position as Hayek and Robert Nozick, two modern defenders of such definitely deprive him of the chance to sell his wheat at a much higher rights, that when they come into conflict with liberty, they have to price than would otherwise be the case. In antiquity, opinion on this give away, even if such situations may be extremely rare. Both Hayek question was divided. Diogenes from Babylon argued that the merchant and Nozick mention the example of the twenty springs in an oasis was obliged to inform his customers of known defects of the good he was where nineteen of them suddenly dry up, leaving the owner of the sole selling, but that he was permitted to try and get the highest price possible remaining spring in a position to impose tyranny on his neighbours.(25) for it. Diogenes made a distinction between concealing something about Aquinas writes: a good from others and not taking the initiative of informing them of something which might change their evaluation of it. The merchant was Nevertheless, if the need be so manifest and urgent, not forcing the islanders to buy his wheat, Diogenes pointed out. They that it is evident that the present need must be did so only if they wanted and needed it. Antipater of Tarsus disagreed. remedied by whatever means be at hand (for instance The merchant was a member of the same moral community as the when a person is in some imminent danger, and there islanders and thus he had an obligation to them not to take advantage of is no other possible remedy), then it is lawful for a the situation.(28) man to succour his own need by means of another’s While Cicero himself concurred with Antipater, Aquinas disagreed property, by taking it either openly or secretly: nor is with both of them: this properly speaking theft or robbery.(26) The defect in a thing makes it of less value now than Hume, a third prominent defender of private property, agrees: In an it seems to be: but in the case cited, the goods are emergency, the rules of justice, including those of private property, are expected to be of less value at a future time, on account suspended. Hume mentions a shipwreck and a city besieged.(27) of the arrival of other merchants, which was not foreseen by the buyers. Wherefore the seller, since he Aquinas on Business Ethics sells his goods at the price actually offered him, does not seem to act contrary to justice through not stating Aquinas briefly discusses another famous example about justice and what is going to happen. If however he were to do so, or morality in business. It was originally introduced by Stoic philosophers, if he lowered his price, it would be exceedingly virtuous on his part: although he does not seem to be bound to do this as a debt of justice.(29) (25) Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960), p. 136; Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 180. (26) Aquinas, Summa, Bk. II, Pt. II, Qu. 66, §7. (28) Marcus Tullius Cicero, De officiis [On Duties], tran. by Walter Miller (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913), Book III, XII–XIII, pp. 50–57. (27) David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. by L. A. Selby Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902), Section III, Part 1, p. 186. (29) Aquinas, Summa, Bk. II, Pt. II, Q. 77, §3. 50 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 51

Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like.(30)

Certainly people would be better if they would abstain from vices, the philosopher-saint thinks, but government should concentrate its limited resources on suppressing those vices which are dangerous to other The deadly aftermath of a people, such as murder and theft. This does not look all that dif­ferent Here, Aquinas uses the crucial distinction shootout over the ownership from the celebrated principle of liberty for which English philosopher of an unbranded cow. Aquinas between justice and generosity­ . He points out argues that private property John Stuart Mill argued: ‘The only purpose for which power can be rights reduce conflicts over that the merchant is not selling a defective scarce resources. Painting by rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against good; he is not cheating his customers, even Frederic Remington, What an his will, is to prevent harm to others.’(31) Or, as American anarchist Unbranded Cow has Cost. if he may be lacking in generosity. Although Lysander Spooner exclaimed, vices are not crimes.(32) the philosopher-saint does not explicitly say so, it seems that in his argument he relies on uncertainty about the The Thomist Tradition in Politics future: Whereas the merchant has seen the sails of other merchant ships on the horizon, he cannot be sure that they will arrive safely in Rhodos. Aquinas cannot be viewed, anachronistically, as a fully-fledged con­ He is not bound to lower the price others are willing to pay him, on the servative liberal, and some of his disquisitions, for example on heresy and basis of educated guesswork. Another argument which could strengthen usury, may appear odd to a modern reader. It should be noted however Diogenes’ and Aquinas’ case is from self-ownership: If people own that the opposition by many medieval thinkers to interest on loans themselves, then they presumably also own the knowledge which they was perhaps influenced by the fact that most enterprises in those days have acquired without violating any moral or legal rules (even if some were self-financed and that loans were usually granted in emergencies would call it ‘insider trading’). It is theirs, and theirs alone, to choose such as crop failures, house fires, animal diseases, epidemics or armed whether or not they reveal it in negotiations with others. conflicts, where charging interest may have seemed immoral or at least Aquinas seems surprisingly liberal on another issue: the attempts by government to impose conventional morality on its subjects, prohibiting victimless crimes where modern examples could be the use (30) Aquinas, Summa, Bk. II, Part I, Q. 96, §2. of recreational drugs, gambling, pornography and prostitution, not to (31) John Stuart Mill, Essay on Liberty (1859). Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, ed. by John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977 ). mention various non-procreational sexual activities between consenting (32) Lysander Spooner, Vices are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty (1875), The Shorter Works adults. Here as elsewhere Aquinas is practical and moderate: and Pamphlets of Lysander Spooner, Vol. 2 (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2010). 52 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 53 ungenerous. Moreover, interest on loans reflects a time preference—a Were the price increases in Spain in the sixteenth century caused by the gold coin is worth more to you today than it will do in a year’s time— great inflow of gold and silver from the New World? Should the Indians in and where there is little or no economic progress, even if there is a lot America be treated with the same respect as other human beings, or were of change and turmoil, as in the Middle Ages, time preference may not they savages? How should the merchants travelling between Spain and have played an important role. Medieval thinkers thought that time Flanders behave if they wanted to be good Christians and at the same time was a common good, not subject to scarcity. But as soon as it becomes profit from their trade? scarce, it has to be priced. Be that as it may, the ideas that natural law Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546) was the founder of the School of constrains the ruler, that the people have a right to depose a tyrant, that Salamanca, publishing works on international law and defending the private property is necessary to create wealth and keep the peace, that rights of American Indians. He also took great interest in commercial merchants perform a useful role and that government should tolerate ethics, trying to reconcile Thomism with the new economic victimless crimes are all important tenets in the conservative-liberal reality confronting him. He emphasised that virtue could not be tradition. commanded. The Good Samaritan was spending his own money, not In the two centuries after Aquinas’ death, during the Italian renais­ that of a government. ‘Alms should be given from private goods and sance some of his economic ideas were developed further by two of his not from the common ones.’(35) He also saw that any kind of enforced compatriots, San Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444) and Sant’Antonino of redistribution created temptations. ‘Evil men will take more and add Florence (1389–1459). They argued that merchants were useful and the less to the barn of the common goods.’(36) Vitoria and other members value of goods depended on their utility. According to San Bernardino, of the Salamanca School came close to formulating the subjective the ‘just price’ was the market price. In particular, a just wage was that on theory of value that Austrian economist Carl Menger presented in the which the employer and his worker could agree, but then the employer nineteenth century: that the value of a good is derived from the utility was not allowed to cheat by paying the wage in clipped or debased it has in the minds of consumers, especially the utility of the last unit coin.(33) Indeed, during the late Middle Ages modern capitalism can be consumed, and from its quantity, in other words from demand and said to have been born in the merchant repu­blics of Northern Italy with supply, as revealed in market transactions, and that the value does the introduction of banking, joint-stock companies and double-entry not depend on the cost of production, such as labour. Vitoria wrote: bookkeeping. But with the rediscovery of America in 1492,(34) the centre of ‘When Peter sells wheat, the buyer need not consider the money gravity moved westwards, from the Mediterranean­­ to the Atlantic Ocean. Peter spent nor his work, but, rather, the common estimation of how Spain became a major European power, and the School of Salamanca much wheat is worth.’(37) British historian Richard H. Tawney was was established. The Salamanca Scholastics­ had many fascinating moral therefore wide of the mark when he said that ‘the true descendant of issues thrust upon them by the Span­ish and Portuguese conquests in the doctrines of Aquinas is the labour theory of value. The last of the America (Portugal was ruled by the Spanish king for 60 years, 1580–1640). Schoolmen was Karl Marx.’(38) Neither Aquinas nor his disciples held

(33) Raymond de Roover, San Bernardino of Siena and Sant’Antonino of Florence: The Two Great Economic Thinkers of the Middle Ages (Boston: Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, (35) Alejandro Antonio Chafuen, Christians for Freedom: Late Scholastic Economics (San Francisco 1967). CA: Ignatius Press, 1986), pp. 52–53. Cf. also José Moreira and André Azevedo, The Salamanca School (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). (34) America had already been discovered in the year 1000 by the Icelanders, but their settlement in 1008–1011 foundered, mainly because of attacks from the native Indians. Christopher Columbus (36) Ibid., p. 156. probably learned of the Icelandic discoveries in a trip to Northern Europe in 1477. Hannes H. (37) Ibid., p. 98. Cf. the chapter on Menger in this book. Gissurarson, The Saga of Gudrid: The Icelandic Discovery of America (Reykjavik: Almenna bokafelagid, 2019). (38) R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1926), pp. 38–39. 54 St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 55

Ayn Rand much later that love can be regarded as the extension of the self: ‘And if I love a friend it is my friend or my parent or my neighbour. If I desire the common good, it is for the benefit ofmy religion or my country or my republic. Love always involves the word ‘mine’ and the concept of property is basic to love’s nature and essence.’ Mercado recognised however that the self could not be extended too far if it was to be effective: ‘If universal love won’t induce people to take care of things, private interest will. Hence, privately owned goods will multiply. Had they remained in common possession, the opposite would be true.’(41) But even if members of the Salamanca School enjoyed much respect, their nascent conservative liberalism did not have much impact. In Spain, absolutism prevailed. It was on an island further north that in a long and arduous struggle between king and parliament arbitrary power became so constrained that there was found a leeway for entrepreneurs, The University of Salamanca investors, and merchants, who consequently could explore the immense the labour theory of value. in the 16th century became new territories which were suddenly opened up in America, Africa, Asia a Thomist centre, and many While many distinguished thinkers of the philosophers there and Australia. In Great Britain the tradition of conservative liberalism supported economic freedom belonged to the Salamanca School, only a few and private property rights. found a home and could flourish. can be mentioned here. Like Vitoria, Domingo Photo: Antoine Taveneaux. de Soto (1494–1560) defended the rights of American Indians and discussed commercial ethics. He was a renowned scholar who was for a while confessor to the king of Spain, Charles I (as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). Martín de Azpilcueta (1491–1586) formulated an early version of the ‘quantity theory of money’, later made a household term by American economist Milton Friedman: if the money supply in a territory increases without a corresponding increase in the territory’s total product, prices will rise.(39) An example was inflation in Spain herself after the conquest of Central and South America. Diego de Covarrubias (1512–1577) taught like Vitoria that value was subjective: ‘The value of an article does not depend on its essential nature but on the estimation of men, even if that estimation be foolish.’(40) Tomás de Mercado (1525–1575) wrote a manual for businessmen, emphasising like

(39) Friedman’s monetary theory is discussed in the chapter on him in this book. (40) Chafuen, Christians, p. 100. (41) Ibid., p. 50. 56 John Locke (1632–1704) 57

John Locke

(1632–1704)

ow can individuals appropriate valuable resources without harming other people? How can they justly exclude others Hfrom the use of resources that they claim as their own, such as fencing off land or branding cattle? Some thinkers who understand and accept free trade in goods and services to the mutual benefit of those involved, reject the moral case for private property rights, even if they may grudgingly admit their usefulness and even their inevitability, at least after the collapse of communism in the early 1990s. Capitalism may be efficient, they say, but is it just? It was English philosopher John Locke who gave perhaps the most plausible response to their challenge in his Two Treaties of Civil Government, within a more general political theory of government by consent, separation of powers, and the right to resist despots, for which he is better known. Locke provided arguments for, and partly inspired, the ‘Glorious Revolution’ in Great Britain during his own lifetime and the American revolution a century later and can therefore, with Karl Marx, be regarded as one of the most influential political philosophers in history. He is rightly seen as the founder of conservative liberalism, even if earlier thinkers such as Snorri Sturluson and St. Thomas Aquinas already had expressed many of the ideas associated with it.

Locke’s Life and Works

Locke argues that the creative powers of capitalism are such that John Locke was born on 29 August 1632 in Somerset in Southern one can appropriate goods from the commons without making England, near Bristol, the son of staunch Puritans, John Locke senior, an others worse off. Painting by attorney and farmer, and his wife Agnes, born Keene. When Locke junior Michael Dahl. was fourteen years old, he went to Westminster School in London. These 58 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 59 were tempestuous times. A civil war between king and parliament was of the kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is raging between 1642 and 1652, with King Charles I being beheaded in thereby vacant.’(1) William of Orange and his wife Mary, the daughter 1649. In 1652, after five years in London, Locke went to Oxford where of James, became joint monarchs. In February 1689, Locke returned he pursued his studies at Christ Church College over six years in various to England, in the convoy of Queen Mary, and soon thereafter he had subjects, mostly philosophy and the natural sciences. In 1661, one year his Two Treatises of Government printed, but not under his own name. after the monarchy had been restored, he became a lecturer at Christ He declined all offers from the government and devoted himself to Church. He took great interest in medicine, and in 1666 he met Anthony publishing and revising his philosophical works, including besides Two Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley, who invited him to join his household as Treatises of Government, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding his personal physician. This was a turning-point in his life. It brought and A Letter Concerning Toleration. From 1691, he lived in the household Locke, a shy and cautious man by nature, right into the centre of British of his friends, Sir Francis and Damaris Masham, at Oates Manor in Essex. politics, because Lord Ashley was leader of the Whigs who wanted to Locke died on 28 October 1704. constrain the power of the monarch, Charles II, whereas the other party, the Tories, supported the king. When Earl Shaftesbury, as Lord Ashley Justice in Initial Appropriation had become, fell out of favour and left politics in 1675, Locke used the opportunity to take a trip across France. He returned to England in 1679 Property plays a central role in Locke’s political theory. ‘The great and at the behest of Shaftesbury and soon thereafter started composing his chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into common-wealths, and putting major political work, Two Treatises of Government, where he argued that themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.’(2) kings had to rule by consent and that they could be deposed if they did But this is property in a wide sense, not only the right to use and transfer not respect the natural rights of their subjects, most importantly rights material goods, but also the ownership by persons of their bodies, to life, liberty and property. His arguments were directed against King knowledge, special skills and other abilities and of what flows from them. Charles II and his brother, James, the heir to the throne who wanted to Locke is not strictly speaking of the opinion that people own themselves: introduce in Great Britain absolutism such as was found in France and they are, he believes, owned by God, their creator. But this means that some other continental monarchies. nobody else owns them. They are not slaves to others, In 1681, Shaftesbury was thrown into the Tower for conspiring against the Crown. Acquitted by a grand jury, but already in indifferent for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, health, he fled to Holland, and passed away after a few months. In late and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one 1683, Locke thought it prudent also to go into exile in Holland where sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, he devoted the next five years to writing philosophical works. James and about his business; they are his property, whose II succeeded his brother in 1685, but was only to reign for three years. workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one Alarmed by the king’s absolutist tendencies, Parliament, supported by another’s pleasure.(3) an army led by James’ Protestant son-in-law William of Orange, forced James II to leave the country at the end of 1688, whereupon it passed a resolution: ‘That King James II., having endeavoured to subvert the (1) David Hume, The History of England (1778), Vol. VI (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1983), Ch. LXXL, p. 309. constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between (2) Locke, Second Treatise, Ch. 9, §124. Two Treatises of Government (1689), ed. by Thomas Hollis king and people; and having, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked (London: 1764). Locke’s works are accessible on the website of Liberty Fund. persons, violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn himself out (3) Ibid., Ch. 2, §6. 60 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 61

It does not really make much difference to Locke’s theory whether people then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, are regarded as owning themselves or being owned by God, because the he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his conclusion in both cases is that others do not own them, their bodies, own, and thereby makes it his property.’(5) He continues: knowledge, special skills and other abilities and what flows from them. Perhaps the only real difference is that Locke would not find suicide or other It being by him removed from the common state forms of self-destruction morally acceptable because then people would be nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something damaging what is God’s property. Neither would he accept that people could annexed to it, that excludes the common right of sell themselves into slavery, since they are really owned by God. other men. For this labour being the unquestionable Our moral intuitions seem to support self-ownership in persons. property of the labourer, no man but he can have a Who owns a heart but the person who already has it? Certainly surgeons right to what that is once joined to, at least where there are not allowed to transfer that heart to somebody else, except in special is enough, and as good left in common for others.(6) circumstances. Again, a woman owns her body and can deny the use of it to others, and those who do not respect her decision can expect severe At first sight, this seems unclear and questionable. How does a man punishments for rape or other violations of her personal integrity. Some acquire a property right to a natural resource by ‘mixing’ his labour might object that self-ownership would not be as obvious in the case with it? Did the first Icelandic settler, Ingolf Arnarson from Norway, for of personal knowledge, special skills and other abilities as it is about example acquire a property right to the whole of the island upon arriving the body of a person itself. People acquire knowledge and discover and in 874, or only to a part of, and if so, to how large a part of it? But Locke’s develop their special skills and other abilities in a social process. This may proviso has to be noted: the man who removes a resource out from the certainly be true, but nevertheless these are their distinct abilities, skills state of nature and mixes his labour with it, has to leave ‘enough, and and knowledge, and not those of others. An opera singer might not have as good in common for others’. He adds another proviso which is that been able to develop her abilities if she had been born and brought up in nobody can appropriate more than he can use before it spoils. However, the jungle and not in Vienna. However, the voice, however well trained, Locke also observes that with the introduction of money, this second is hers and not that of others. Whereas the move from ownership of one’s proviso becomes moot, because perishable goods may be exchanged body to ownership of one’s abilities may thus seem plausible, the next for money which is durable. It is also not clear whether he would have move, to ownership of material goods, is really the contested conclusion. needed the second proviso: it seems to follow logically from the first one, How can self-ownership lead to world-ownership? The opera singer may that ‘enough, and as good’ should be left ‘in common for others’. own her voice, but how does she acquire a full right to all the income Understood literally, the Lockean proviso seems impractical. When that may flow from the use of her voice? Wherefrom does the farmer get a man removes a good or a resource out of the state of nature, he rarely the right to fence off land and call it his? This is a particularly critical would leave enough and as good in common for others. He would always question because Locke says that God has given the earth ‘to mankind in be changing the situation for them as well as for himself. But the proviso common’.(4) can be rephrased, as American philosopher Robert Nozick pointed out.(7) Locke’s answer is that everybody has a property in his own person, including the labour of his body and the work of his hands. ‘Whatsoever

(5) Ibid., Ch. 5, §27. (6) Ibid., Ch. 5, §27. (4) Ibid., Ch. 5, §27. (7) Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), p. 175. 62 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 63

After the Glorious Revolution, Queen Mary, daughter of the deposed king, arrived in England 12 February 1689 to assume the crown. Locke was in the convoy. Painting by Willem van de Velde younger.

A man can remove a material good out from the state of nature in order husbandry, a thousand acres yield the needy and to appropriate it, provided that others are not made worse off by this wretched inhabitants as many conveniencies of life, removal. This is precisely what Locke believes: Because of the enormous as ten acres of equally fertile land do in Devonshire, productive powers of private property rights, non-owners need not where they are well cultivated?(8) become worse off if and when natural resources are appropriated by some people who become their owners. These non-owners are more than St. Thomas Aquinas made a similar observation: Owners tend to look compensated by the many opportunities created by economic progress much better after their property than do non-owners. They have a which, in turn, has been made possible by the initial appropriation. Their direct interest in it.(9) However, Locke’s main argument for justice in situation has been changed, but it has not become worse. This applies initial appropriation is really an argument from liberty: one person may even to land whose supply is limited: appropriate resources justly in the state of nature if and only if he is not making others worse off by it, in other words if he is not reducing their I have here rated the improved land very low, in liberty, equal to his, to try and better their economic condition. making its product but as ten to one, when it is much nearer an hundred to one: for I ask, whether in the (8) Locke, Second Treatise, Ch. 5, §37. wild woods and uncultivated waste of America, (9) St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, tran. by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 2nd left to nature, without any improvement, tillage or rev. ed. (London: 1912–1936), Bk. II, Pt. II, Qu. 66, §2. 64 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 65

Modern economists could add some further arguments for the his knowledge, skills and abilities is really an extension of his right to his productive powers of private property rights, not least of the rights to own body and mind. But the problem in the state of nature is that there is natural resources and capital goods. In an economic system of profit and nobody but himself to protect his rights. This is the main reason, Locke loss, capital will be transferred, perhaps slowly, but surely, from those submits, that men decide to form civil society: to protect their property who do not know how to make it grow, to those who manage it well or at rights, both in themselves and in material things. They consent to leaving least better than their competitors. Repeated losses lead to bankruptcy, the state of nature and entering civil society, to which they give up some whereas profit-making enterprises continue to operate. Competition in of their natural rights, mainly those of self-defence, ‘for the end of civil a free market is somewhat like a sieve that only allows the more efficient society, being to avoid, and remedy those inconveniencies of the state of to get through. But if capital is to be transferred, split up or merged, in nature, which necessarily follow from every man’s being judge in his own such a self-corrective process, this capital has to be owned by somebody case, by setting up a known authority, to which every one of that society and be transferable. Moreover, in a system where capital is dispersed may appeal upon any injury received, or controversy that may arise, and among many relatively wealthy capitalists, it will not be as difficult for which every one of the society ought to obey.’(11) But men do not only potential innovators and entrepreneurs to find investors as it would be consent to entering into civil society in order to avoid trouble. They do if they would have to convince a majority in a public Innovation Fund it also to obtain ‘many conveniencies, from the labour, assistance, and Board of their idea. Thirdly, experiments are much easier and likely society of others in the same community’.(12) As Aquinas had observed where capital is in many private hands, not in one public fund, and before Locke (and Aristotle before them),(13) man is a social being. it is not least experiments leading to new knowledge which make an The foundation of civil society, as Locke describes it, reflects the fact economic system dynamic and productive. Fourthly, private ownership that the relationship between its members is not that of a child and his of capital goods and natural resources extends the time horizon of the father, or a slave and his owner, or a master and his servant, or a student owner. He would plant a tree that would only bear fruit in ten years, even and his teacher. It is a relationship between independent, consenting if he had to sell his plot in five years, because the potential gain from the and rational adults who regard and recognise one another as equals tree will be reflected in the price he is able to get for the plot. In other under the law, both the law of nature valid at all times and prior to civil words, he takes the future into account.(10) society and human law which subsequently is introduced in civil society. But the human law has to be ‘founded on the law of nature, by which they Locke’s Social Contract are to be regulated and interpreted’.(14) Upon entering civil society men do not and cannot give up their natural and equal right to liberty, only According to Locke, property rights are natural in the sense that they some rights which derive from that, such as the right of self-defence. In exist in the state of nature, prior to the formation of civil society and turn, they acquire an obligation to obey the law of the land, including government. Man is not the property of anyone else and therefore, unlike the government of the day, under normal circumstances. It should be a slave or a child, he has a right to his own body and mind, including the emphasised that Locke’s social contract establishing civil society is knowledge particular to him, his special skills and other abilities. His right to material things that he has appropriated (without making anyone else worse off) and to the income he can derive from these things and from (11) Locke, Treatise, Ch. VII, §90. (12) Ibid., Ch. IX, §130. (13) Aristotle, Politics, 1253a, 1–10. (10) Nozick, Anarchy, p. 177. (14) Locke, Treatise, Ch. II, §12. 66 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 67 between all its members, and not between people and government, as survive, and hopefully to flourish. These rules would therefore not be too for example Thomas Hobbes envisaged. In Locke’s theory, government different from what Herbert Hart called ‘the minimum content of natural is introduced after civil society has been established, and it could take on law’. Conservatives would argue that such rules should be those that had various forms, as it did in Europe at his time, but it was important, Locke proved their usefulness in history, as Edmund Burke eloquently exclaimed: held, to try and separate the executive and legislative powers. Whereas the relationship between the members of civil society was based on Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts, for consent, the relationship between them and government was based on objects of mere occasional interest, may be dissolved trust. Those who held power were entrusted with it, and if they seriously at pleasure; but the state ought not to be considered abused it then the people could ‘appeal to heaven’.(15) as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a Locke’s concept of the social contract does not seem as plausible as trade of pepper and coffee, callico or tobacco, or some his theory of justice in initial appropriation. Was there ever a state of other such low concern, to be taken up for a little nature? When was consent given to move out of it and to establish civil temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of society? Was this consent explicit or tacit? Was it given by all or just the the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; majority, and if so, why should the minority be bound by it? And how because it is not a partnership in things subservient were coming generations bound by the original contract? David Hume only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and pointed out some of these problems and also identified a logical flaw in perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a the very concept of social contract. Men were supposed to have a duty partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, to obey an authority because they had promised to do so in a social and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership contract. But wherefrom did they acquire the duty to keep their word? cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes Such a duty had to precede the promise. ‘What necessity, therefore, is a partnership not only between those who are living, there to found the duty of allegiance or obedience to magistrates on that but between those who are living, those who are dead, of fidelity or a regard to promises, and to suppose, that it is the consent of and those who are to be born. Each contract of each each individual, which subjects him to government,’ Hume asked, ‘when particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval it appears, that both allegiance and fidelity stand precisely on the same contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the foundation, and are both submitted to by mankind, on account of the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible apparent interests and necessities of human society?’(16) world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the Perhaps some sense can be made out of the idea of a social contract inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral if it is supposed to be hypothetical, consisting in a set of rules to which natures, each in their appointed place.(18) rational men would agree if they were put into the position of Adam Smith’s ‘impartial spectator’ or under John Rawls’ ‘veil of ignorance’.(17) However, perhaps Burke and Hume, writing in Great Britain a century They would probably agree to rules that would enable society at least to after the Glorious Revolution, did not appreciate how necessary it may have been for Locke to come up with a theory which circumscribed the powers of both king and parliament and which allowed for a rebellion (15) Ibid., Ch. XIV, §168. (16) David Hume, Of the Original Contract, Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. by Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1987), pp. 480–481. (18) Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Select Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. (17) Their theories are discussed in the chapters on Smith and Robert Nozick, respectively, in this book. II (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1999), p. 192–193. 68 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 69 if there was an attempt to extend those powers and abuse them. Hume and Burke were confidently and comfortably arguing within a political tradition which had been articulated by Locke, even if it stretched back to the Middle Ages, and for whose preservation Englishmen had had to fight, both in the Civil War and in the Glorious Revolution.

The Marxist Challenge to Locke

Hume and Burke were criticising Locke from within the liberal Whig tradition, dominant in Great Britain after the Glorious Revolution. There were of course other critics who attacked Locke from the outside. In the nineteenth century, Karl Marx thundered against the enclosure of commons. Less polemically, some modern Marxist scholars, including Crawford B. Macpherson and Gerald A. Cohen, have tried to refute Locke’s political theory. They have asserted that Locke is not trying to articulate the common good; rather, that he is defending the special interests of the British governing class at the time, landowners and city merchants, and that he is ignoring the dispossessed. Locke does not give voice to liberalism, they said, but to ‘possessive individualism’. Macpherson claimed to identify a contradiction in Locke’s political An area shaped like a half- moon stretched from Northern (20) theory. On the one hand, Locke assumes that men are rational agents, Italy through Switzerland, the which would never be given. guided by their self-interest, but not evil by nature, and that therefore life Rhineland, the Netherlands However, it is unfair to dismiss Locke as and England, where a in the state of nature is at least tolerable. On the other hand he also seems commercial civilisation a mere ideologue, with Macpherson, and it to believe that in the state of nature men grossly misbehave, treating developed in the absence of requires reading a lot into his theory that is strong central power. Painting one another like animals, whereupon it becomes necessary to leave the by Quentin Massys, The not there, although Locke of course shares state of nature and to establish civil society.(19) Again, Cohen claimed that Moneychanger. some of the prejudices of his age. Locke’s real Locke’s description of how the commons could be enclosed in a process target is the absolute and arbitrary power of of justifiable initial appropriation was based on the implausible premise monarchs, which threatens the poor no less—and perhaps more—than that resources in the commons initially were unowned. According to the rich.(21) While Locke assumes political equality, he is indifferent Cohen, these resources were jointly owned by everybody living there to economic inequality. He is not trying to defend or justify it: for him at the time, and in order to justify their appropriation, Locke needs the it is neither good nor bad, but rather the inevitable consequence of consent of all of these people, which has however never been given and

(20) G. A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 115. (19) C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: (21) Alan Ryan, Locke and the Dictatorship of The Bourgeoisie, Political Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1965), Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 240–241. pp. 219–230. 70 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 71 the fact that people have different knowledge, skills and abilities. But productivity went down, with the Soviet Union of which Ukraine formed a the interests of the poor weigh as much in the state of nature as those part, eventually having to import grain. The main victims of this historical of the rich. They are just as free to appropriate natural resources as experiment were the poor in Ukraine. Again, the famine in Communist the rich. Locke’s proviso on initial appropriation that ‘enough, and China from 1959 to 1962 which claimed more than forty million lives was as good’ has to be left ‘in common for others’ should be recalled, or on much worse.(23) A comparison between countries also is telling. Texas our interpretation, that others are not to be made worse off by it. Locke and Mexico are both oil-rich countries and side by side, separated only then argues that wealth creation under capitalism would more than by Great River, the Rio Grande. In Texas oil wells are privately owned and compensate for the loss of particular parcels of property removed by operated, whereas in Mexico all oil reserves belong to the ‘nation’ which individuals from the commons. It has to emphasised that he is arguing in practice means the federal state. But the poor want to move from from liberty, and not offering a utilitarian argument for private property Mexico to Texas, because she is a much richer country with many more rights. These factual claims about wealth creation enter his argument for opportunities. Almost invariably, if given the chance, the poor vote with private property rights, but do not constitute it. The main argument is their feet for capitalism. that if other people are not made worse off by the initial appropriation Macpherson is not necessarily right, either, that there is an inherent of resources, then they have nothing to complain about. Their liberty contradiction in Locke’s idea of human nature. Locke does not present has not been infringed. Whether or not they are being made worse off a logical contradiction, but a paradox that can be resolved. In a large can only be decided by an appeal to the facts, and the facts certainly society where people do not know one another, there is much more seem to suggest that Locke was right. When I was at Oxford, I once had uncertainty than in a small, face-to-face society. Therefore one rationally a discussion with one of my teachers, David Miller, a market socialist can hold two different views on other individuals. This can be brought who accepted free trade and rejected private property. ‘My worry,’ he out by an example. When you want to have your house repaired, you seek explained, ‘is about the latecomers, the people who arrive in a country out the carpenters with the best reputation and choose the one which where everything has been appropriated.’ I replied: ‘But surely, people you trust the best to do the job. But at the same time you sign a written who arrived in North America in 1950 could expect to be better off even if contract with him about the total estimated cost of the job and the time all the natural resources had been appropriated and all the capital goods it is supposed to take. Your choice of the carpenter shows your trust in were privately owned, than people who arrived in 1550 when they could him. Your contract with him shows your distrust of him. You hold both more or less appropriate at will.’ views at the same time, because you live in a large society where there If anything, the poor have more to fear than the rich from the arbitrary is uncertainty about other people and about the future. Even if most power that was Locke’s main target. They have lesser means to resist it. It people are honest, you may, in your behaviour, have to assume that is instructive to observe what happens when property rights to natural everybody else is a rogue.(24) Therefore, for example, you lock your door resources are abolished. Ukraine had long been the breadbasket not only when you leave your house and you do not entrust your credit card, with of the Romanov Empire, but of Europe as a whole. In the early 1930s, the the Personal Identification Number, PIN, to strangers. Moreover, human Bolsheviks transferred the land from individual farmers to the state or to farmers’ collectives. First, it took a famine claiming six million lives to force the unwilling farmers into the state farms or the collectives. They Hutchinson, 1987). were literally starved into submission.(22) Then, over time agricultural (23) Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: the History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe (London: Bloomsbury, 2010). (24) James M. Buchanan and Geoffrey Brennan,The Reason of Rules (Cambridge: Cambridge (22) Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (London: University Press, 1985), p. 60. 72 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 73

couple’s joint assets in any significant way without the explicit consent of the other partner. If God gave the earth to men in common so that they are to use its resources for their survival and eventually for a good life, then surely each of them would not have to get the approval of everybody else for any use he would make of any of the earth’s resources. He would only have to make sure that he would not be making others worse off. Locke wrote:

We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use. And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners. Rice paddies: Locke observes Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant nature is not totally fixed. Temptation may that when land is privately has cut; and the ore I have digged in any place, where owned it is worth much more bring out the worst in men. In the state of than in commons. I have a right to them in common with others, become nature people who are strong and aggressive my property, without the assignation or consent of by inclination may be tempted to seize their neigbours’ property or to any body. The labour that was mine, removing them threaten their lives and limbs; they would behave much more decently out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my in civil society where the policeman stands ready to keep order on High property in them.(27) Street. This can be observed in periods of lawlessness, as a result of war or, however briefly, power shortages, even in civil societies with a long This can be seen by the real commons of the world, jointly owned by history.(25) some group. Since the settlement of Iceland in the ninth century, for Cohen’s objection to Locke’s theory of property—that natural example, the mountain pastures have been a commons, jointly owned resources were owned jointly before being appropriated, not unowned— by the farming community in the valleys nearby: the farmers drive their is also less than plausible.(26) Joint ownership has to be argued for, not sheep up there in spring and collect them in autumn. Certainly, they simply postulated. But even if we would assume joint ownership, then do not need the permission of their co-owners to do so. However, the it would not necessarily follow that it would of the same kind as we find farmers may not harm one another by individually grazing too many for example in marriage where one of the partners cannot transfer the sheep up there (as it would be tempting to do because the cost of over- grazing would be borne by the community as a whole, but the benefit

(25) For example, Keith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (London: would go to the individual farmer who cheated). Therefore, each farmer Picador, 2013). received a sheep ‘quota’ on the basis of the value of his farm; he could (26) While Cohen presents ingenious arguments against justice in initial appropriation, he has been well asnwered: Jan Narveson, Libertarianism vs. Marxism: Reflections on G. A. Cohen’sSelf- Ownership, Freedom and Equality, The Journal of Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1998), pp. 1–26; Tom G. Palmer, G. A. Cohen on Self-Ownership, Property, and Equality, Realizing Freedom (Washington DC: Cato Institute, 2009), pp. 129–154. (27) Locke, Treatise, Ch. V, §28. 74 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 75 not graze a larger number of sheep than that in the mountain pasture. When providence divided the earth among a few lordly The total number of sheep allowable in the pasture was that which in the masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who judgement of the farmers ‘does not give fatter sheep if reduced but also seemed to have been left out in the partition.(31) fills the pasture’, or in other word that number of sheep which maximised the ‘output’ of the pasture.(28) Again, it may be true that historically initial appropriation often was The Marxist preoccupation (or even obsession) with initial violent and unjust. But economists have reached an interesting conclusion: appropriation in natural resources may be somewhat off the mark. As ‘Almost all earnings advantages and disadvantages of ancestors are wiped Locke emphasises, only a fraction of total income comes from ownership out in three generations.’(32) of natural resources. Most of it is derived from the use of one’s abilities, Perhaps the simplest way of describing the issue between conservative physical or mental.(29) It has been estimated that at most 5% of total liberals and socialists is in terms of the garden and the fence. Supporters income is based upon untransformed raw material and resources.(30) of private property focus on the garden: after it has become somebody’s Adam Smith pointed out the scant relevance of original appropriation: property, the owner usually cultivates it, planting trees and growing corn, so that its value increases considerably. Opponents of private property The produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly focus on the fence: after it has been erected, nobody except the owner that number of inhabitants which it is capable of is allowed to enter the garden and pick fruits from the trees or harvest maintaining. The rich only select from the heap what corn from the fields. But if others complain, then the owner can point out is most precious and agreeable. They consume little that he is creating value from which they benefit, and indeed they benefit more than the poor; and in spite of their natural so much that they are more than compensated for the fact that they are selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their excluded from the use of this parcel of land. The fence is in other words own conveniency, though the sole end which they immaterial to the issue, whereas the garden is not. The infringement of propose from the labours of all the thousands whom liberty that the fence constitutes is illusory. they employ be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the A Modern Application of Locke’s Theory produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution Locke’s theory of property is still relevant, as a modern example of of the necessaries of life which would have been made justice in initial appropriation shows. Locke remarks in the Treatise on had the earth been divided into equal portions among Government that the ocean is the ‘great and still remaining common of all its inhabitants; and thus, without intending it, mankind’.(33) Indeed, until recently, offshore fish stocks around the world without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, were treated as a non-scarce resource. But in 1954, H. Scott Gordon and afford means to the multiplication of the species. demonstrated that under open access, in a given fishery, effort would

(28) Thrainn Eggertsson, Analyzing Institutional Successes and Failures: A Millennium of Common (31) Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), ed. by D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie Mountain Pastures in Iceland, International Review of Law and Economics, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1992), pp. (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1982), Pt. 4, Ch. I, pp. 184–185. 423–437. (32) Gary S. Becker and Nigel Tomas, Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families, Journal of (29) Locke, Treatise, Ch. V, §42. Labor Economics, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1986), p. 32. (30) David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), pp. xiv–xv. (33) Locke, Treatise, Ch. V, §30. 76 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 77

(34) increase up to the point where all possible profit would disappear. Economic Overfishing: 16 Boats, Not 8 Cost The reason was simple: if there was still some profit to be had from Source: H. Scott Gordon, Journal of Political Economy (1954). Income harvesting fish, then people would keep adding fishing vessels to the 120 fleet. This would not stop until no more profit was to be had. But catch, and therefore revenue, changed according to another principle than 100 effort, or cost. First catch increased with effort, reaching a maximum at 80 some level of effort, after which it started going down. What this meant 60 was that fishing effort was, under open access, bound to increase beyond the point at which the difference between total revenue and total cost in 40 the fishery was the greatest, or in other words where possible profit was 20 greatest.(35) A simple example shown on the opposite page will suffice. Total catch in a given fishery would be highest at the effort of 10 boats, 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 whereas it would go down to nothing at the effort of 20 boats (which would mean that the fish stock would then have been exhausted). Under open access total fishing effort would increase to 16 boats because after conference in the autumn of 1980. This is a problem where capitalism that no profit is to be had. But for it to be as profitable as possible, total fails, I was told. When I suggested that property rights could perhaps fishing effort should really be at 8 boats because then total catch would be developed, either to fishing grounds or to individual fish stocks, I be just as much as with greater effort, or even more, whereas total cost was derided.(36) But this is precisely what happened. For the reasons would be only half of what it would be at 16 boats. The problem was the Gordon had explained, the fish stocks in the Icelandic waters had absence of property rights, as Gordon pointed out. There seemed to be been over-utilised. For decades, growing fishing fleets were chasing no way to stop the addition of boats, after the most profitable level of dwindling fish stocks. After Iceland had gained sole control of her fishing effort had been reached, up to the level where all profit (or rent waters in 1977, she could start managing the fisheries. In a slow from the resource) had been dissipated in excessive fishing effort—in and experimental process, the authorities, in close cooperation short with 16 boats harvesting what 8 boats could have done. with the fishing industry, decided to introduce so-called individual How could property rights however be introduced in the ‘great transferable quotas, ITQs, to fish stocks. In 1984, the owner of a and still remaining common’ of the ocean? Neither fencing nor fishing vessel received a right to harvest a certain proportion of the branding seemed feasible there, unlike the appropriation of land Total Allowable Catch, TAC, in a certain stock of groundfish, based and cattle. Fishing grounds extended over enormous areas of the sea, on his catch history in the preceding three years.(37) For example, if and fish stocks moved around in large schools. I was still a student he had harvested 5% of the total catch in 1981–1983, he received the at the University of Iceland when I was challenged about this at a right to harvest 5% of the TAC in 1984. This meant that he could plan his fishing effort over the season in such a way that cost would

(34) In fact, a Danish economist had anticipated his analysis, but as he wrote in Danish, no notice was taken of it at the time. Jens Warming, Om ‘Grundrente’ af Fiskegrunde, Nationaløkonomisk Tidskrift, Vol. 49 (1911), pp. 495–506; Peder Andersen, ‘On Rent of Fishing Grounds’: A Translation of Jens Warming’s 1911 Article, with an Introduction, History of Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 3 (1983), pp. (36) [Arni Bergmann], Thadan skin ljosid [Therefrom Shines the Light], Thjodviljinn 14 November 391–396. 1980. It was a derisive comment on my contribution. I explained my proposal in English, The Fish War: A Lesson from Iceland, Journal of Economic Affairs, Vol. 3 (1983), pp. 220–223. (35) H. S. Gordon, The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 62, No. 2 (1954), pp. 124–142. (37) A quota system was already in place in the much less important herring and capelin fisheries. 78 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 79 be minimised, instead of having to participate in a ‘Derby’—a race in My response was that this critique was based on a misunderstanding which the fisherman had to harvest as much as he could in the shortest of the problem. The only right others were deprived of was that of time possible, with the inevitable result that he over-invested in harvesting fish at zero profit, as would inevitably happen under open fishing vessels and gear. Moreover, the right was transferable so that access, and this right was worth nothing. The Lockean proviso, that if the quota-holder was efficient and enterprising, he could buy quota nobody would be made worse off by the initial appropriation, was from others less interested in harvesting fish. Sooner or later, in fulfilled by allocating the quotas on the basis of catch history. To see this such a process fishing effort would go down whereas the catch would more clearly, compare the two ways of initially allocating quotas, in a remain the same or even go up. To return to the example of 16 boats government auction or on the basis of catch history. After the auction, harvesting fish where 8 boats would have sufficed: The owners of the government would be much better off since it would capture at least 8 more profitable boats would eventually buy quotas from the owners some of the profit which previously had been dissipated in excessive of the 8 less profitable ones so that fishing effort would go down from effort. The fishermen who would remain in the fishery because they 16 to 8 boats. The profit which had been dissipated under open access, could afford to buy the quotas from government would be neither better would now be captured by the owners of the fishing vessels. nor worse off: they would just pay to government what previously they In 1990, after much debate, the system of ITQs was made com­ had spent on the excessive fishing capacity of their vessels. But the prehensive in all Icelandic fisheries, and in the same year I published fishermen who would leave the fishery because they did not have the a book in Icelandic arguing that such a system could be both efficient means to buy the quotas from government would be much worse off: and just.(38) It certainly had its critics. They focused on the indisputable they would see their human and physical capital suddenly disappear fact that the fishing grounds had been enclosed. Whereas in the past, because without the quotas their special skills, and their vessels, and everybody who wanted to harvest fish and had the proper equipment, their fishing gear would be worthless. could do so, now the only people with access to the fishing grounds An initial allocation of quotas on the basis of catch history were those who held quotas in the fish stocks found there. Others were (some­times called ‘grandfathering’) would have a different impact. excluded. Instead of giving the quotas to incumbent fishermen, why did Government would be somewhat better off because an economic government not auction them off? the critics asked. The end result would sector which previously had been operating at zero profit would now be the same: the number of fishing vessels in the example discussed be profitable so that it could pay taxes and be the source of increased would go down from 16 to 8. With the introduction of the ITQ system, consumption and investment. The fishermen who would remain in were others not being deprived of the right to go to sea and harvest fish? the fishery because they would hold on to their own quotas and buy Why were valuable resources transferred to a small group of people, the additional quotas from those leaving it, would be better off: they would owners of fishing vessels? The ITQ system might be efficient, the critics now be owners of valuable extraction rights. The fishermen who would said, but it was not just. In an auction of the quotas, on the other hand, leave the fishery because they would sell their quotas would also be everybody would have a chance.(39) better off, with all the money they had received for the quotas. In the first scenario, there would be some winners and some losers, but in

(38) Hannes H. Gissurarson, Fiskistofnarnir vid Island: Thjodareign eda rikiseign? [The Fish Stocks in the the second one, there would only be winners and no losers. In other Icelandic Waters: Property of the Nation or of the State?] (Reykjavik: Stofnun Jons Thorlakssonar, 1990). words, only the second way of initially allocating quotas would fulfil (39) Thorvaldur Gylfason, The Pros and Cons of Fishing Fees: The Case of Iceland, EFTA Bulletin the Lockean proviso. 3/4 (Geneva: European Free Trade Association, 1992). Eventually, Gylfason founded a political party whose main tenet was the nationalisation of the fishing quotas as a part of creating a new constitution This conclusion can be expressed differently. A change is called for Iceland. He stood in the 2013 parliamentary elections, where his party received 2.4 per cent of the votes and failed to win a seat in the Parliament. 80 John Locke (1632–1704) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 81

Pareto optimal if somebody gains by it and nobody is harmed.(40) The initial allocation of quotas on the basis of catch history was Pareto optimal in this sense, unlike the proposed government auction. This may indeed explain why this alternative was chosen. It was more feasible to buy out people (reduce excessive fishing capacity) in transactions among the quota holders than to drive out people by their inability to bid a high enough price for the quotas in a government auction. To return once again to the simple example of a single fishery: fishing effort had to be reduced from 16 to 8 boats. This could be achieved in an auction where the price of the quotas would be set high enough that only 8 boat owners would be able to buy them; or it could be done by allocating the quotas to all 16 boat owners and allowing them to transfer them between themselves, with the foreseeable outcome that the 8 more efficient boat owners would buy out the 8 less efficient ones. Needless to say, also, ‘grandfathering’ was a more peaceful solution. It is somewhat optimistic One example of initial to expect half the people working in the fisheries in a given country appropriation which satisfies is not really bettering the condition of the the Lockean Proviso of not suddenly and obediently to leave them. making anyone worse off is people working in this particular sector. the introduction in Iceland Some further considerations about the two alternatives are worth of a system of individual It is simply using the harmful effect as an mentioning. First, the potential profit from the fisheries—the resource transferable quotas in opportunity for taxation. Is the solution then offshore fisheries. rent previously dissipated and now captured—would probably not be any better than the problem?(42) Thirdly, and used as wisely in the long run by government as it would be by fishing consequently, if government develops and vessel owners. Bureaucrats are usually worse investors than capitalists. enforces rules under which individuals are able profitably to utilise this Would the profit not be dissipated again, not at sea, but in political natural resource, offshore fish stocks, then it is just doing in the fishery bargaining, with one kind of waste replacing another kind of waste?(41) what it has already done, according to Locke’s theory, in other sectors of In the second place, overfishing can be analysed as a harmful effect the economy, where property rights, or at least exclusive use rights, are for some of other people’s economic activities, similar in nature to in place.(43) It is promoting peace and prosperity by clearly defining the pollution from a factory or overcrowding on motorways. The boat citizens’ rights and duties, as should be its role. owners who arrive on the fishing grounds after effort has reached the most profitable level are imposing costs on the whole group (including themselves) and these costs could be eliminated if access was not open. But if government steps in and charges for the use of the resource, it

(40) James M. Buchanan, Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1959), pp. 124–138. (42) Ronald H. Coase, The Problem of Social Cost, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1960), pp. 1–44. I return to this question in the chapter on James M. Buchanan in this book. (41) Birgir Th. Runolfsson, ITQs in Iceland: Their Nature and Performance, Individual Transferable Quotas in Theory and Practice, ed. by R. Arnason and H. H. Gissurarson (Reykjavik: University of (43) Hannes H. Gissurarson, The Icelandic Fisheries: Sustainable and Profitable (Reykjavik: University Iceland Press, 1999), pp. 103–140. of Iceland Press, 2015). 82 David Hume (1711–1776) 83

David Hume

(1711–1776)

he Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England was not made to reconstruct society according to any abstract principles: Its Tgoal was to preserve ancient liberties that were perceived to be under threat from King James II who was influenced by the absolutism of his neighbour, King Lewis XIV of France. Thus, it was a conservative revolution. In the eighteenth century, royal power was further restrained by an emerging tradition of parliamentary democracy; it was accepted that government had to enjoy the confidence of a majority in parliament where the House of Commons was an elected body. While certainly imperfect, the English Constitution was admired by writers and thinkers all over Europe, most prominently by Voltaire. ‘The English are the only people upon earth who have been able to prescribe limits to the power of kings by resisting them,’ he wrote, ‘and who, by a series of struggles, have at last established that wise Government where the Prince is all powerful to do good, and, at the same time, is restrained from committing evil.’(1) The Kingdom of Great Britain came into being in 1707, when Scotland and England formed a union. It was a Scot, David Hume, one of the most eminent philosophers of all time, who provided perhaps the best articulation and explanation of the Anglo-Saxon conservative-liberal political tradition, not only in his philosophical treatises, but also in a best-selling history of England in six volumes that ended with the

Hume describes how the Glorious Revolution. notion of justice is developed in response to two facts of life: scarcity and selfishness. Painting by Allan Ramsay. (1) Voltaire, Letter VIII: On the Parliament, Letters on the English (1733). Of course the book was suppressed when it came out in French the following year. 84 David Hume (1711–1776) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 85

Hume’s Life and Works but he was to be bitterly disappointed. ‘Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from David Hume was born in Edinburgh on 7 May 1711, the son of Joseph the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur Home, an advocate, and his wife Katherine, born Falconer. He was among the zealots,’ he later commented.(3) related to the earls of Home, but changed the spelling of his name for the Hume moved to Scotland where he lived for a while with his mother benefit of English friends. Hume’s father died when he was an infant, and and elder brother and continued writing. His Essays, whose first part was the family had to struggle to let ends meet. At the age of twelve, Hume published in 1742, were well-received. In 1745, Hume was hired to spend entered the University of Edinburgh, but he was unhappy there and did time with and look after an English lunatic, the Marquess of Annandale. not graduate. In 1734, he became a merchant’s assistant in Bristol for After twelve months of doing this he was invited to become secretary to a while, but then moved to France where he lived frugally and devoted an English general and remained in his service for two years, travelling himself to writing. He returned to London in 1737 and in 1739–1740 he with him to Vienna, Turin and other places. He nevertheless found time published a Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the to write a revised and much shorter version of his failed early work, Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. In this deeply Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, published in 1748. Again he original philosophical work he argued that experience was the sole returned to Scotland and lived for two years with his brother. There he source of what little and unreliable knowledge we had. We could not composed the second part of his Essays and also an Enquiry concerning even be sure that the sun would rise tomorrow: the expectation that it the Principles of Morals. Both works were published in 1752, and in would was based only on observation and provided no assurance about the same year the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh chose him to be the future, although we would do wisely in expecting it to rise tomorrow. their Librarian which gave him the command of a large library. He set Hume also exposed the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ that values could be deduced about writing a History of England which was published in six volumes from facts: between 1754 and 1761. As a best-seller it made the author financially independent. Hume was going to retire comfortably when in 1763 he was In every system of morality, which I have hitherto invited by the Earl of Hertford to be the secretary of the Embassy in Paris. met with, I have always remarked, that the author Already well-known as a distinguished philosopher and historian, he proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of lived in Paris for the next three years. The stout, polite and good-natured reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes Scot was a welcome guest in Parisian salons, earning the nickname Le observations concerning human affairs; when of a bon David. ‘Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes, will sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual never imagine the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with of all ranks and stations,’ he later wrote. ‘The more I resiled from their no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or excessive civilities, the more I was loaded with them. There is, however, an ought not.(2) a real satisfaction in living at Paris, from the great number of sensible, knowing, and polite company with which that city abounds above all The young philosopher thought that he had presented many strong places in the universe.’(4) arguments, and felt ready vigorously to defend them against any critics,

(3) David Hume, My Own Life, Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. by Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1987), p. xxxiv. (2) David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), Bk. III, Sect. I, p. 409. Most of Hume’s writings are accessible at the website of Liberty Fund. (4) Ibid., p. xxxix. 86 David Hume (1711–1776) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 87

autobiographical note, written shortly before his death, he described himself: ‘I was, I say, a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments.’(5) His good friend, Adam Smith, wrote after his death: ‘The extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind, or the steadiness of his resolutions. His constant pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour, tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men.’ In Smith’s judgement, Hume was ‘approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit’.(6) Hume’s principles of stability At the end of Hume’s stay in Paris, in late of possessions and their transference by consent are Hume’s Theory of Justice 1765, he made the acquaintance of another preconditions of a flourishing market order. Painting by philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who John Collet, Covent Garden The core of Hume’s legal philosophy can be summed up in one sentence: had been driven out of Switzerland for his Piazza and Garden in 1775. Human society is a survival game, not a suicide club. In his Treatise, radical religious views and was now risking Hume observes that man can hardly survive on his own. He has to live arrest in France. Hume decided to try and help the fugitive, ignoring in society in order to fulfil his needs. Hume goes on to show how in the advice of his French friends that he was paranoid and dangerous. society the principles of justice are developed in an historical process, Baron d’Holbach even warned Hume that he was warming a viper in being neither divine ordinances nor innate ideas. They ‘leave every his bosom. Perhaps Hume thought that his experience of looking after one in the peaceable enjoyment of what he may acquire by his fortune a mad Marquess would help. In January 1766, Hume brought Rousseau or industry’.(7) These principles are responses to two basic facts about with him to England and provided him with a house in the country. But human beings: Individuals seek their self-interest, or the interests of soon Rousseau started to suspect Hume of working against him, indeed their immediate circle of family and friends, whereas the resources of organising a vast conspiracy against him. When Hume learned about at their disposal are scarce, much less than they want. To avoid chaos, this, he was shocked and wrote to many of his friends, trying to explain conflict and war, in these circumstances men slowly come to learn and that these were delusions. This strange affair ended with an agitated accept certain rules. Hume explains Rousseau fleeing to France after staying only four months in England. Hume returned to Edinburgh, but in 1767 he accepted a position in (5) Ibid., p. xl. London as Under Secretary of State for the Northern Department (6) Letter from Adam Smith, LL.D. to William Strahan, Esq. 9 November 1776. David Hume, Essays, pp. which later became the Foreign Office. Two years later he retired to xlviii and xlix. Edinburgh, remaining there till his death on 25 August 1776. In a short (7) Hume, Treatise, Pt. II, p. 489. 88 David Hume (1711–1776) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 89

that justice takes its rise from human conventions; have different abilities and needs, and find themselves in situations and that these are intended as a remedy to some where property has to be adjusted to persons. ‘Different parts of the inconveniencies, which proceed from the concurrence earth produce different commodities; and not only so, but different men of certain qualities of the human mind with the both are by nature fitted for different employments, and attain to greater situation of external objects. The qualities of the mind perfection in any one, when they confine themselves to it alone. All this are selfishness and limited generosity; and the situation requires a mutual exchange and commerce.’(12) This is the idea which of external objects is their easy change, join’d to their Adam Smith was later to call ‘division of labour’. Therefore translation scarcity in comparison of the wants and desires of by consent, or free trade, is adopted as the second principle. But the men.(8) peaceful and orderly transfer of goods between consenting customers requires a certain amount of trust. Therefore the performance of This theory is entirely naturalistic. Justice is contingent on certain promises—what lawyers used to call ‘Pacta sunt servanda’—is adopted human circumstances, ‘the concurrence of certain qualities of the human as the third principle. mind with the situation of external objects,’ and if these circumstances Hume rejects Locke’s theory of property as implausible and were different, then the system of justice would also be different, or unnecessary. Like some modern philosophers,(13) Hume believes perhaps not exist at all. Hume suggests, for example, that justice would the Lockean proviso—that nobody is made worse off by initial disappear in a world where the generosity of men would be extensive appropriation—is superfluous. The absence of a legitimate counter-claim and where everything would be in abundance: there, ‘they render it is sufficient. Hume’s own description of how people originally come to useless.’(9) Since such a world is not logically impossible, justice is not a hold property is therefore simple. When the move is made from the state deliverance of reason alone, Hume argues. of nature to civil society those who already hold goods keep them. They The main principles of justice, derived from the qualities and continue to enjoy them. Possession becomes recognised ownership. circumstances of human beings, are three, according to Hume, ‘the According to Hume, other goods, not originally held by anybody, can be stability of possession, its translation by consent, and the performance acquired in four different ways, by occupation, prescription, accession of promise’.(10) Hume asks his readers to imagine a place where scarce and succession. He freely admits that it may be difficult to define how goods would not be securely possessed by individuals. It would be a much people can come to hold by occupation: if a man arrives at a small society of endless strife and misery. Therefore stability of possession, and uninhabited island, then he may perhaps become its owner, but this or private property, is adopted as the first principle of justice, not is not necessarily true if it is a big island. Prescription or a deliberate consciously, but historically. ‘Nor is the rule concerning the stability decision is another way of assigning holdings to individuals, when the of possession the less deriv’d from human conventions, that it arises main task is to eliminate uncertainty. Accession is when people come to gradually, and acquires force by a slow progression, and by our repeated hold goods which are somehow connected to the goods that they already experience of the inconveniences of transgressing it.’(11) Again, people own. An example might be when a coal mine or an oil well is suddenly discovered on privately owned farmland. In a footnote, Hume mentions the ocean:

(8) Ibid., p. 494. (9) Ibid., p. 496. (12) Ibid., p. 514. (10) Ibid., p. 541. (13) Jan Narveson, Property Rights: Original Acquisition and Lockean Provisos, Public Affairs (11) Ibid., p. 490. Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1999), pp. 205–227. 90 David Hume (1711–1776) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 91

’Tis the general opinion of philosophers and civilians, that the sea is incapable of becoming the property of any nation; and that because ’tis impossible to take possession of it, or form any such distinct relation with it, as may be the foundation of property. Where this reason ceases, property immediately takes place. Thus the most strenuous advocates for the liberty of the seas universally allow, that friths and bays naturally belong as an accession to the proprietors of the surrounding continent.

In the case of the Icelandic fishery, where access to offshore fishing grounds had to be restricted, Hume would most likely have favoured the initial allocation of transferable fishing rights to those who had already been fishing: This would be the most expedient, or least harmful, way of closing off the commons. A third example which Hume mentions in passing is the property of rivers which ‘by the laws of most nations, and by the natural turn of our thought, is attributed to the proprietors of Hume was a Whig who, in his their banks’.(14) The fourth way of acquiring property not originally held popular history of England, While this argument may be plausible about was fair to the Tories. Painting by anybody, succession, is fairly straightforward. It is the rule that one by William Hogarth, the continuous post-war history of Central may leave one’s property to one’s heirs. The Polling. and Eastern Europe, perhaps it cannot be taken very far back. The authorities in Possession and Ownership the Czech Republic, for example, have been unwilling to recognise property claims by members of the German-speaking minority that A possible modern counter-example to Hume’s theory is the return were forced to emigrate from the then Czechoslovakia after the Second of properties to their previous owners in post-communist European World War. Germany’s defeat in 1945 marked a dramatic break with the countries. Why should Hume’s rule on present possession leading to past in Central and Eastern Europe, and individual rights that existed ownership not apply there? Why should those who possessed these before then may have become irrelevant: they were a part of a legal properties when communism fell in 1989–1991 not keep them? The structure which has since disappeared. If the goal is peace in Europe, answer is that there are in many cases well-justified counter-claims then the borders drawn in 1945 and the massive population transfers to the properties. They were seized without compensation from their subsequently implemented, often violently and probably contrary to owners by governments that were usurpers, not legitimate rulers. Those international law, have to be accepted. On his theory, Hume probably who then took those properties over were accomplices to a robbery. would find it easier than Locke to deal with this moral dilemma: let bygones be bygones and hope that time will heal wounds. Another much-discussed example where present possession does not (14) Hume, Treatise, Pt. II, p. 511n. necessarily lead to ownership is that of Jewish properties in Europe before 92 David Hume (1711–1776) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 93 and during the Second World War, including works of art stolen by the sentence, because the master thrashed me here, and Nazis and deposits in Swiss bank accounts, sometimes without adequate said that the verdict would have been excellent if I had records. The claims of the owners, or their heirs, could be accepted like been appointed to say what fitted and what did not, the claims of previous owners of property in post-communist countries, but I had been called in to decide to whom the coat for a related, but not identical reason. The Jewish properties were seized belonged, and the point to consider was, who had a by governments which were not all usurpers originally, but which had right to it: Was he who took a thing by violence to keep lost their legitimacy as a result of their misdeeds, in particular the Nazi it, or he who had had it made and bought it for his own? government of Germany: While Hitler took power legally in 1933, he soon And the master taught me that what is lawful is just forfeited it. Yet another intriguing and difficult example is Cuba. After the and what is in the teeth of law is based on violence, and communist takeover in 1959, virtually the whole middle class, about one therefore, he said, the judge must always see that his million people, one-tenth of the population, fled to the United States, often verdict tallies with the law.(15) leaving behind nice houses, into which others have moved, sometimes even many families, as my walk around Havana in 2002 revealed. These Hume’s point is that for the system of property rights to have its desired houses have not been occupied by their rightful owners for sixty years. If effects, it had to be comprehensive and inflexible: The big boy owned the the communist regime in Cuba would suddenly fall, would it then be fair small coat and the little boy the big coat, and that was the end of it, as far to recognise the claims of the previous owners, provided of course that as a judge was concerned. But the example also shows the necessity of these claims are well-documented, and hand the houses over to them, translation by consent. The big boy should not use violence to exchange leaving the present occupants homeless? Perhaps considerations similar his coat with that of the little boy, but he could buy the big coat and to those about the German-speaking minority that was driven out of sell his own small coat. Goods are transferred in a peaceful process to Czechoslovakia may be relevant: some historical facts have to be conceded produce a better fit. rather than challenged; some claims can be kept alive and others become Thus, justice, although contingent upon certain circumstances, is far oblivious in the course of history. Hume would in such cases probably from being arbitrary. Its principles have, for the very idea of justice to stress the general benefits of property rights, but also the need for peace have any application, to be fixed and perfectly general, Hume emphasises: and continuity, including a smooth transfer of power from one regime to another. But however single acts of justice may be contrary, An example about stability of possession as a principle briefly either to public or private interest, ’tis certain that the mentioned by Hume is instructive. It is a story that Cyrus, Emperor of whole plan or scheme is highly conducive, or indeed Persia, told about his youth, recorded (or perhaps invented) by Xenophon: absolutely requisite, both to the support of society, and the well-being of every individual. ’Tis impossible There were two boys, a big boy and a little boy, and the to separate the good from the ill. Property must be big boy’s coat was small and the small boy’s coat was stable, and must be fix’d by general rules. Tho’ in one huge. So the big boy stripped the little boy and gave instance the public be a sufferer, this momentary ill is him his own small coat, while he put on the big one amply compensated by the steady prosecution of the himself. Now in giving judgment I decided that it was better for both parties that each should have the coat that fitted him best. But I never got any further in my (15) Xenophon, Cyropaedia, tran. by Henry Graham Dakyns (London: J. M. Dent, 1914), Bk. I, Ch. 3, p. 17. 94 David Hume (1711–1776) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 95

rule, and by the peace and order which it establishes in society. And even every individual person must find himself a gainer on ballancing the account; since, without justice, society must immediately dissolve, and everyone must fall into that savage and solitary condition, which is infinitely worse than the worst situation that can possibly be suppos’d in society.(16)

It is, in other words, expedient in the long run not to be expedient in the short run. Narrow rationalism is self-defeating. The distribution of wealth and income in society Hume would consider not to be unjust, if it would be brought about by following his three principles of stability of possession, its translation by consent and the performance of promises: Statue of Hume by Alexander ’Twere better, no doubt, that every one were possess’d Stoddard on Royal Mile in inequality), then a system of private property Edinburgh. Hume is a sceptic of what is most suitable to him, and proper for his who bases his political theory and free trade—stability of possession and on time-tested rules, not use: But besides, that this relation of fitness may on eternal truths or divine its translation by consent—has historically be common to several at once, ’tis liable to so many commands. Photo: Bandan/ proved to be the best way of alleviating it. In Wikipedia. controversies, and men are so partial and passionate the second place, once government has taxed in judging of these controversies, that such a loose the citizens with the result that vast resources and uncertain rule wou’d be absolutely incompatible are at its disposal for redistribution, ferocious political conflicts may with the peace of human society. The convention start about who should receive them, and it is by no means certain that concerning the stability of possession is enter’d into, in the weakest and poorest would win such political battles. Thirdly, private order to cut off all occasions of discord and contention; charity should not be ignored as a way of helping unfortunate people and this end wou’d never be attain’d, were we allow’d who do not deserve their poverty. But the unfortunate poor would not to apply this rule differently in every particular case, have a legitimate claim to other people’s property, according to Hume. according to every particular utility, which might be discover’d in such an application.(17) Hume’s Political and Economic Theory

In modern terms, Hume could make some further points about One of Hume’s most important contributions to legal and political income distribution. First, if poverty is the problem (rather than, say, philosophy is that he showed that some rules are neither invented by men nor revealed by God or human reason. These are rules which are spontaneously developed: they are products of human action, but not of (16) Hume, Treatise, Pt. II, p. 497. human design. The system of justice with its three main principles, the (17) Ibid., p. 502. stability of possession, its translation by consent and the performance 96 David Hume (1711–1776) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 97 of promises, is a successful adaptation to circumstances, not a rational canals form’d; fleets equip’d; and armies disciplin’d; every where, by the construct. It is what Friedrich von Hayek was later to call a ‘spontaneous care of government, which, tho’ compos’d of men subject to all human order’. Other examples are language and money, as Hume mentions: ‘In infirmities, becomes, by one of the finest and most subtle inventions like manner are languages gradually established by human conventions imaginable, a composition.’(20) Nevertheless Hume agrees with Locke without any promise. In like manner do gold and silver become the that if government becomes intolerable, the duty to obey it disappears: common measures of exchange, and are esteemed sufficient payment ‘whenever the civil magistrate carries his oppression so far as to render for what is of a hundred times their value.’(18) While Hume argues for his authority perfectly intolerable, we are no longer bound to submit to such orders in terms of their utility, he cannot be considered a proper it. The cause ceases; the effect must cease also.’(21) Hume is therefore a utilitarian, as is indeed obvious from the examples he discusses, such qualified supporter of the Glorious Revolution in 1688. as that of the big boy and the little boy in their non-fitting clothes. It is It depends on circumstances, Hume says, to whom people owe the whole system which has the utility, not individual rules or acts. And allegiance, or, in his words, ‘whom we are to regard as our lawful this is utility seen and elucidated after the system has come into being magistrates’.(22) The first principle which gives authority to established as the unintended consequence of following certain principles. Perhaps government is long possession, even if originally it was founded on Hume’s moral position could therefore be called ‘system utilitarianism’ usurpation and rebellion. The second source of public authority is or ‘indirect utilitarianism’.(19) The difference between him and present possession. ‘No maxim is more conformable, both to prudence nineteenth century utilitarians is that for Hume human reason could and morals, than to submit quietly to the government, which we find be employed to explain order where it was already in place, whereas establish’d in the country where we happen to live, without enquiring too the utilitarians thought that it could be used to reconstruct society in curiously into its origin and first establishment.’(23) A third source of the order to maximise happiness or welfare. It is indeed likely that Hume, title of sovereigns is conquest, the fourth one is succession and the fifth describing the evolution of institutions, inspired Charles Darwin who one positive laws. ‘In this particular, the study of history confirms the was to present a general theory of human evolution a century later. reasonings of true philosophy; which, shewing us the original qualities Hume’s theory of political authority is as simple and direct as his of human nature, teaches us to regard the controversies in politics as theory of justice. He rejects Locke’s idea that people owe allegiance to incapable of any decision in most cases, and as entirely subordinate government because they have made a promise to do so. Instead, Hume to the interests of peace and liberty.’(24) None of these principles is thinks that the duties to perform promises and to obey government are conclusive, Hume thinks, but the concurrence of all of them would form both derived from the gradually forming and often tacit acceptance of the strongest title to sovereignty. rules and principles enabling people to live together peacefully. People In one of his essays, published posthumously, Hume speculates about owe allegiance to government because it is useful. They are preserving which would be the ‘perfect commonwealth’, beginning however with their lives and properties by appointing somebody to keep law and words of caution: order. But government also has a positive function as a forum for human cooperation: ‘Thus bridges are built; harbours open’d; ramparts rais’d;

(20) Hume, Treatise, Pt. II, p. 539. (21) Ibid., p. 551. (18) Hume, Treatise, Pt. II, p. 490. (22) Ibid., p. 554. (19) John Gray, Indirect Utility and Fundamental Rights, Social Philosophy and Policy, Vol. 1, No. (23) Ibid., p. 558. 2 (1984), pp. 73–91; Tom G. Palmer, What is Not Wrong with Libertarianism, Realizing Freedom (Washington DC: Cato Institute, 2009), pp. 183–203. (24) Ibid., p. 562. 98 David Hume (1711–1776) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 99

An established government has an infinite advantage, by that very circumstance of its being established; the bulk of mankind being governed by authority, not reason, and never attributing authority to any thing that has not the recommendation of antiquity. To tamper, therefore, in this affair, or try experiments merely upon the credit of supposed argument and philosophy, can never be the part of a wise magistrate, who will bear a reverence to what carries the marks of age; and though he may attempt some improvements for the public good, yet will he adjust his innovations, as much as possible, to the ancient fabric, and Hume, featured on a preserve entire the chief pillars and supports of the Scottish banknote, presents may be subdued by great force from without,’ constitution.(25) a ‘monetarist’ explanation Hume argues, and therefore there have to be of inflation. It is caused by monetary expansion. many almost self-governing counties in one But, he adds, ‘In all cases, it must be advantageous to know what is most large country. ‘This scheme seems to have perfect in the kind, that we may be able to bring any real constitution or all the advantages both of a great and a little commonwealth.’(26) Finally, form of government as near it as possible, by such gentle alterations and Hume observes that ‘extensive conquests, when pursued, must be the innovations as may not give too great disturbance to society.’ First, Hume ruin of every free government’.(27) says that all attempts at changing human nature are futile, such as those In his essays on economic issues, Hume writes as a liberal and proposed by Plato in the Republic and Sir Thomas More in Utopia (and monetarist, as it would be called today. He shares the idea with Adam we could add: the Jacobins in France and the Bolsheviks in Russia). In the Smith that nations benefit by the division of labour, although he does second place, government institutions should be radically decentralised, not use that term, and applauds merchants, ‘one of the most useful races with the many counties and parishes electing local magistrates and both of men, who serve as agents between those parts of the state, that are local representatives and members of a senate based in the capital. The wholly unacquainted, and are ignorant of each other’s necessities’.(28) vote would be confined to those with a stake in society: those who own He anticipates David Ricardo’s idea of comparative advantage: Even property and pay taxes. The senate in the capital would have the power of if one nation has benefitted initially from the division of labour and peace and war and all other prerogatives of the king, except his negative become wealthy, poorer ones can do so too, ‘by the low price of labour in (veto). The legislative power would be divided between the senate and every nation which has not an extensive commerce, and does not much the county assemblies. The militia would be organised as in Switzerland abound in gold and silver’.(29) Hume argues against ‘jealousy of trade’, where the cantons of the Confederation provided a citizen army to defend it. ‘A small commonwealth is the happiest government in the world within itself, because every thing lies under the eye of the rulers: But it (26) Ibid., p. 525. (27) Ibid., p. 529. (28) Hume, Of Interest, Essays, p. 300. (25) Hume, Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth, Essays, pp. 512–513. (29) Hume, Of Money, Essays, p. 283. 100 David Hume (1711–1776) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 101 as he calls protectionism. It is based on erroneous thinking: ‘Each new the only comprehensive statement of the legal and political philosophy acre of vineyard planted in FRANCE, in order to supply ENGLAND with which later became known as liberalism’.(37) Quinton and Gilmour focus wine, would make it requisite for the FRENCH to take the produce of an on Hume’s cautious conservatism, his willingness to accept existing ENGLISH acre, sown in wheat or barley, in order to subsist themselves; institutions and his deep scepticism about radical reform programmes, and it is evident, that we should thereby get command of the better whereas for Hayek his most important contribution is how he derives commodity.’(30) In the end, he submits, everybody loses by protectionism: the fundamental principles of the free market order, private property ‘in the arithmetic of the customs, two and two make not four, but often rights, the freedom to trade and the fulfilment of voluntary obligations, make only one.’(31) Hume also presents modern ideas of money as a means from the two basic facts about the human condition, man’s selfishness of exchange and unit of account. It is ‘none of the wheels of trade: It is and nature’s niggardliness. Perhaps Hume can be interpreted as not the oil which renders the motion of the wheels more smooth and easy.’(32) rejecting natural law, as is often said, but rather as having set out its And it is ‘nothing but the representation of labour and commodities ‘minimum content’, or the principles that have to be followed if life is a and serves only as a method of rating or estimating them’.(33) The reason survival game, and not a suicide club. Like the conservatives, Hume does for inflation is that the money supply is increasing at a faster rate than not think individual reason is capable of much in contrast to the social the total amount of commodities which money can buy. This explains reason embodied in time-tested institutions, but like the liberals, he why prices rose in Europe when gold and silver flowed in from Spanish believes in a progressive, tolerant society. He can therefore be regarded America. ‘We fancy, because an individual would be much richer, were as a genuine conservative liberal. his stock of money doubled, that the same good effect would follow were the money of every one encreased; not considering, that this would raise as much the price of every commodity, and reduce every man, in time, to the same condition as before.’(34) It is not surprising that Hume has both been called a conservative and a liberal. Two British Tories, Lord Anthony Quinton and Sir Ian Gilmour, each devote a chapter in their respective books on conservatism to Hume,(35) and in one of his best-known essays English philosopher Michael Oakeshott says that his conservatism owes more to Hume than to Burke.(36) Hayek, on the other hand, says that ‘Hume gives us probably

(30) Hume, Of the Balance of Trade, Essays, p. 315. (31) Ibid., p. 324. (32) Hume, Of Money, Essays, p. 281. (33) Ibid., p. 285. (34) Hume, Of the Balance of Trade, Essays, p. 316. (35) Anthony Quinton, The Politics of Imperfection (London: Faber and Faber, 1978); Ian Gilmour, Inside Right. A Study of Conservatism (London: Quartet Books, 1978). (36) Michael Oakeshott, On Being Conservative, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, (37) F. A. Hayek, The Legal and Political Philosophy of David Hume (1963), The Collected Works of F. A. (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1991), p. 435. Hayek, Vol. 3 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 105. 102 Adam Smith (1723–1790) 103

Adam Smith

(1723–1790)

arely is one individual considered the founder of a scientific discipline. But this applies to Adam Smith and economics, Rwhose theoretical foundations he laid in his monumental work, published in 1776, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. His explanation of how wealth is created, by division of labour and free trade, is almost uncontested by any serious student of the subject. Under his influence, most Western countries in the nineteenth century abandoned mercantilism and protectionism. In his book, Smith also presented two powerful ideas which even to this day have not been fully comprehended: that order can arise without design and that one man’s gain need not be another man’s loss. He tried to explain these ideas by his famous metaphor of an ‘invisible hand’ leading people pursuing their own interests to promote the common good. Smith was also a formidable moral philosopher who in his Theory of Moral Sentiments discussed how sympathy could guide individuals in their dealings with others despite their limited benevolence. As most other thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, such as his good friend David Hume, Smith supported cautious economic and political reforms within the confines of existing institutions and can therefore certainly be regarded as a conservative liberal.

Smith’s Life and Works

Smith teaches that one man’s gain need not be another Adam Smith was born on 16 June 1723 in Kirkcaldy in Scotland, the son of man’s loss and that economic coordination can be achieved a solicitor, Adam Smith senior, and his wife Margaret, born Douglas. His without commands. Painting father, a comptroller of customs, died two months before he was born, by an unknown artist. and he was raised by his mother. At the age of three, he was abducted by 104 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 105 gypsies, but soon rescued. He would have made a poor gypsy, one of his pursuits, and familiarising his mind to those important speculations he biographers drily remarked.(1) Smith was a gifted student, and when he was afterwards to communicate to the world.’(3) was fourteen years old he was sent to the University of Glasgow where One fruit of Smith’s labours in Glasgow was The Theory of Moral his favourite pursuits were mathematics and natural philosophy. Three Sentiments which came out in 1759 and met with much acclaim. There years later, in 1740 he went to Oxford to continue his studies. He was not he tries to explain moral principles by the sympathy that we feel for our happy at Oxford, commenting later: neighbours and our ability to put ourselves in their footsteps. We listen to an ‘impartial spectator’ inside us who serves as our moral compass. The discipline of colleges and universities is in general In his lectures in the following four years, Smith shifted his attention contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for more to jurisprudence and political economy. But when he received an the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease offer to accompany the young Duke of Buccleuch on his travels, he gladly of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain accepted. They set out in early 1764 from London, and first stayed briefly the authority of the master, and whether he neglects in Paris where Smith made many friends. Then they settled for quite a or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all while in Toulouse and travelled after that in the South of France and on cases to behave to him as if he performed it with the to Geneva, before returning to Paris in late 1765, staying there for ten greatest diligence and ability. It seems to presume months. In Paris Smith found the opportunity to discuss his ideas with perfect wisdom and virtue in the one order, and the contemporary French economists, including Robert Jacques Turgot, greatest weakness and folly in the other. Where the François Quesnay and Jacques Necker. With a life pension from the masters, however, really perform their duty, there Duke, the next ten years Smith passed in retirement with his mother in are no examples, I believe, that the greater part of Kirkcaldy, with occasional visits to London and Edinburgh, and worked the students ever neglect theirs. No discipline is ever on his great treatise on economics, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are of the Wealth of Nations. On its publication in 1776 Hume wrote to his really worth the attending, as is well known wherever friend: any such lectures are given.(2) It was a work of so much expectation, by yourself, by After seven years at Oxford, Smith returned to Kirkcaldy and lived your friends, and by the public, that I trembled for two years with his mother, but in 1748 he moved to Edinburgh where its appearance, but am now much relieved. Not but he befriended David Hume. In 1751, Smith was appointed Professor of that the reading of it necessarily requires so much Logic in the University of Glasgow and a year later Professor of Moral attention, and the public is disposed to give so little, Philosophy. He had a happy time in Glasgow. ‘It was indeed a situation that I shall still doubt for some time of its being at in which he was eminently fitted to excel, and in which the daily labours first very popular. But it has depth and solidity and of his profession were constantly recalling his attention to his favourite acuteness, and is so much illustrated by curious facts that it must at last attract the public attention.(4)

(1) John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London: Macmillan, 1895), p. 5. (3) Dugald Stewart, Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D., The Theory of Moral (2) Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. by Edwin Cannan Sentiments (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), p. xvi. (London: Methuen, 1904), Bk. V, Ch. I, Pt. III, §II, p. 253. This and some other works by Adam Smith are accessible on the website of Liberty Fund. (4) Ibid., p. xlviii. 106 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 107

Hume’s doubts about the reception of the Wealth of Nations turned over Switzerland and Southern Germany to the Low Countries and over the out to be unfounded. The work quickly became popular in the United Channel to England: this was an area where for historical reasons political Kingdom, with the first edition selling out in six months, and soon it power became relatively weak and where commerce could therefore thrive. was translated into many other languages, including French, Danish, No longer was poverty regarded as the natural condition of man; it was German, Spanish and Italian. wealth that had to be explained. Put simply, Adam Smith’s explanation for In the next two years after the publication of the Wealth of Nations, Smith the emerging wealth of nations is the division of labour. He gives the example lived in London, but in 1778, at the initiative of his former student, the Duke of pin-making. One man could scarcely make one pin a day. But when people of Buccleuch, he was appointed Commissioner of Customs in Edinburgh specialise in certain aspects of the task, the product can be greatly increased. where he lived for the rest of his life, with his mother and niece who took ‘One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth care of the household, relieving ‘him of a charge for which he was peculiarly points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head ill qualified’.(5) The irony of the ardent free trader becoming a customs requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business, officer seems to have been lost on his contemporaries. In Edinburgh, Smith to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the kept a simple, though hospitable table, and was always happy to receive his paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided friends. He was also known secretly to spend a considerable proportion of into about eighteen distinct operations.’(7) Smith estimates that thus ten his income on charity. When the infirmity of old age set upon him, he asked men can make up to 48,000 pins in a day, or in other words that each of them that all his manuscripts be destroyed, while he spent a lot of time revising could make 4,800 pins in a day instead of just one. The division of labour his two major works. The fifth edition of theWealth of Nations, the last in his enables each workman to specialise and become more dexterous; people lifetime, came out in 1789. Smith had a circle of close friends who appreciated save time commonly lost from passing from one species of work to another; his intelligence and were quietly amused by his absent-mindedness. ‘He and machines will be invented which facilitate and abridge labour so that was certainly not fitted for the general commerce of the world, or for the one man can do the work of many. business of active life,’ one of them wrote. ‘The comprehensive speculations In the example of the pin factory, Smith does not assume different initial with which he had been occupied from his youth, and the variety of materials abilities of the workers. The benefits from the division of labour are even which his own invention continually supplied to his thoughts, rendered him clearer when people enter work with different abilities. Thirty years before habitually inattentive to familiar objects, and to common occurrences.’(6) the publication of the Wealth of Nations, German poet Christian F. Gellert Adam Smith passed away on 17 July 1790. had illustrated this in the fable of the blind man and the lame, where the two of them overcame their deficiencies by the blind carrying the lame: The Division of Labour The gifts of others thou hast not, For thousands of years, poverty and even misery had been the common lot While others want what thou hast got; of mankind, with only a few conspicuous individual exceptions. But in the And from this imperfection springs late Middle Ages this began to change with the rise of commercial society in The good that social virtue brings.(8) that part of Europe shaped as a half-moon stretching from Northern Italy

(7) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. I, Ch. II, p. 6.

(5) Ibid., p. lxii. (8) Christian F. Gellert, Der Blinde und der Lahme, Fabeln und Erzählungen (1746), Bk. I, Ch. 16. The Poetry of Germany, ed. by Albert Baskerville (New York: Rudolph Garrigue, 1854), pp. 7–8. The (6) Ibid., p. lxvii. translator calls ‘social virtue’ what in the German original is ‘Gesellschaft’, or society. 108 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 109

The division of labour not only benefits individuals, but also nations, as Smith points out time and again in the Wealth of Nations. Poland is well suited for raising corn, and Portugal for growing wine. Both nations benefit from specialising accordingly and then trading those different goods which can be produced most cheaply in their respective countries. Smith uses this observation to launch a powerful attack on mercantilism, prevalent in the eighteenth century, whereby nations were meant to increase exports while protecting their industry and commerce from imports; this they were supposed to do in order to accumulate wealth. Smith points out, however, that wealth is not a heap of gold coins, but rather the productive capital of a country which will increase if she engages in mutually beneficial trade with other countries. The end of the mercantilists, to accumulate money, is therefore misconceived. The means advocated by the mercantilists, to protect domestic industry and commerce from foreign competition, is also wrong. The main fact about economic life is that everybody needs the goods and abilities of other people most of whom are and will remain strangers. ‘It is not from the Smith presents a powerful benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our This can be shown by a less dramatic example. critique of mercantilism. dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, Painting by Claude Assume that Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday Lorrain, Seaport with the not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of are the only people on an island and that they Embarkation of Saint Ursula. our own necessities but of their advantages.’(9) This applies even more require only fish and fruit for their survival. to nations than to individuals. The Poles sell corn on the international Crusoe is better at fishing and Friday is better at picking fruits. Crusoe market and use part of their income to buy wine from the Portuguese. can catch 6 fishes a day or pick 4 fruits, whereas Friday can pick 6 fruits The individuals of these two nations do not know one another personally and catch 4 fishes. If they do not cooperate, then Crusoe will catch 3 fishes except in rare cases and may not even feel the slightest sympathy for one and pick 2 fruits a day, whereas Friday will catch 2 fishes and pick 3 fruits. another. But they all benefit from the division of labour. The ‘total product’ of the island will be 10 food units. But with division of Division of labour between nations requires international free trade. labour and peaceful trade between the two islanders, Crusoe will catch 6 It must be possible for goods to cross borders. Smith takes an example fishes and Friday will pick 6 fruits. The total product of the island will have from his own country: increased from 10 to 12 food units. Crusoe and Friday are both better off as a result. When subsequently money is introduced into the economy, By means of glasses, hotbeds, and hotwalls, very good division of labour is greatly facilitated. A violinist needs a haircut, but he grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine cannot take for granted that he can pay the barber by playing on his violin. too can be made of them at about thirty times the Therefore he holds a concert for those who enjoy violin music, collects money from them and uses part of it to pay the barber. With money, people can choose what and when to consume. (9) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. I, Ch. II, p. 16. 110 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 111

expence for which at least equally good can be brought earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, the tiny nation, already weakened from foreign countries. Would it be a reasonable law to by misguided mercantilist policies, almost became extinct. There was prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely even talk in Copenhagen about moving what was left of the population to to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in other Danish territories.(12) In 1787, the disastrous trade monopoly was Scotland?(10) finally abolished, whereas foreign trade only became fully free in 1855. It is an intriguing possibility that Adam Smith played a role in the The answer is obvious. It would be a ‘manifest absurdity’, as Smith abolition of the Danish trade monopoly in Iceland. In May 1762 when Smith says, to turn towards any employment thirty times more than would be still lived in Glasgow he met three Norwegians who were travelling around necessary to purchase from foreign countries an equal quantity of the Europe, Andreas Holt and his students, the brothers Peter and Carsten commodities wanted. He adds that the same applies to other less glaring Anker who came from a wealthy merchant family. Smith wrote in a travel cases. It would also be an absurdity to turn towards any employment a notebook which the Anker brothers had brought with them: ‘I shall always thirtieth, or even a three hundredth, part more of either. be happy to hear of the welfare & prosperity of three Gentlemen in whose Nations should concentrate on producing what they can do better conversation I have had so much pleasure, as in that of the two Messrs. than others, and then trade with those others, to their mutual benefit. Anchor & of their worthy Tutor Mr. Holt. 28th of May 1762.’ In March 1764, Iceland provides an instructive example. The island is surrounded by the three Norwegians met the Scottish scholar again in Toulouse where some of the world’s most fertile fishing grounds, whereas agriculture in Smith’s student, the Duke of Buccleuch, wrote in the travel notebook: her harsh climate is not very productive. But from 1380, Iceland was a ‘Having had the pleasure of meeting Messieurs Anchers & Mr. Holt at tributary of the Danish Crown which tried to isolate the country in order Toulouse. It is with the greatest satisfaction that I member myself amongst to keep its control over her. In 1602, a few Danish merchants obtained a their acquaintance. Buccleugh.’(13) Norway was then, like Iceland, a part of monopoly on all trade with Iceland. Despite many attempts by the rulers the Danish Realm, and Holt and Carsten Anker went on to become high in Copenhagen to close off Icelandic waters, every summer the fishing officials in the Danish Ministry of Finance. Holt’s duties in the Ministry grounds attracted vessels from several European countries. If any included chairing a Royal Commission on Iceland in 1770–1772. Shortly Icelander was found to have done trade with these foreigners, however, after the publication in the United Kingdom of the Wealth of Nations, Holt he could expect severe punishment. The Danish Crown ruled the country and the Anker brothers arranged for its translation into Danish, and it in collaboration with a small class of Icelandic landowners who did not came out in 1779–1780.(14) Holt contacted his old friend to tell him about want any competition from the fisheries. No Icelander was allowed to the translation, and Smith replied to him in October 1780, thanking him for be domiciled outside one of the country’s five thousand farms, and no his entertaining account of travels in Iceland and expressing his pleasure foreigner could stay on the island during the winter. Thus, ocean fishing was only possible as a part-time activity for farmers, and the Icelanders, forced to rely on agricultural products, were locked in a poverty trap.(11) (12) Anna Agnarsdottir, Scottish plans for the annexation of Iceland 1785–1813, The Scottish Society for In the eighteenth century, after a series of disasters, famines, epidemics, Northern Studies, Vol. 29 (1992), pp. 82–96. (13) Niels Banke, Om Adam Smiths Forbindelse med Norge og Danmark [On Adam Smith’s Connection with Norway and Denmark], Nationaløkonomisk Tidskrift, Vol. 93 (1955), p. 172. The travel notebook, stambog, was in the Anker family archive. Cf. also Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, Adam Smith og kredsen bag (10) Ibid., Bk. IV, Ch. II, p. 423. National-Velstands Natur [Adam Smith and the Group Behind the Wealth of Nations], Libertas, No. 25 (June 1998), pp. 5–16. (11) Thrainn Eggertsson, No Experiments, Monumental Disasters. Why it Took a Thousand Years to Develop A Specialized Fishing Industry in Iceland, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organisation, Vol. (14) Undersøgelser om National-Velstands Natur og Aarsag af Doctor Adam Smith (Copenhagen: 30 (1996), pp. 1–23. Gyldendal, 1779–1780). 112 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 113 over the translation.(15) The translator, Frants Dræbye, was also an official in the Danish Ministry of Finance. It is tempting to assume that friends and disciples of Adam Smith in Copenhagen had some influence on the decision in 1787 to abolish the Danish trade monopoly in Iceland (although by then Holt had passed away). As a result of free trade, gradually introduced in 1787–1855, the Icelanders finally began to enjoy their comparative advantage and to develop their fisheries, becoming in the twentieth century one of the richest nations of the world. Yet again, the division of labour had proved its worth.

Coordination Without Commands

It is division of labour and The Wealth of Nations is much more than a tract for the times, or a pol­ the unfettered trade of coordinated without commands? Smith’s emic against mercantilism. It is an analysis of how spontaneous co­ goods that creates wealth, answer is that it is through the mutual adjust­ according to Adam Smith operation can take place in an extended order not based on immediate who long adorned the twenty ments of all the economic units. With this, he contacts or personal knowledge. The free market order is not designed pounds banknote. laid the foundations of economics which as by anyone: a scientific discipline seeks to explain order without design. Without trade restrictions, he writes, ‘the obvious and This division of labour, from which so many simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord’.(17) advantages are derived, is not originally the effect This system is one of cooperation into which people enter freely, of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends not under the whip of pharaoh’s slave drivers. One of Smith’s examples that general opulence to which it gives occasion. of a product of the joint efforts of many workmen is a simple woollen It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual coat. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber, the dyer, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser and many which has in view no such extensive utility; the others must all join their different arts in order to complete even this propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing homely product. Merchants and carriers must have been employed in for another.(16) transporting the materials from some of these workmen to others, often living in distant places. In order to bring together the different drugs Smith’s work is a description of commercial civilisation and the forces on of the dyer, for example, ship-builders, sailors, sail-markers, and rope- which it rests. In a complex economic order, how are demand and supply, makers must have been employed. Again, complicated machines such as import and export, savings and investment, and other economic forces, the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller and even the loom of the weaver are all required to form the simple shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore, the (15) The Correspondence of Adam Smith, ed. by Ernest Campbell Mossner and Ian Simpson Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 249–253. Neither Holt’s account of travels in Iceland nor his 1780 letter to Adam Smith seem still to exist. (16) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. I, Ch. II, p. 15. (17) Ibid., Bk. IV, Ch. IX, p. 184. 114 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 115 feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal used in the smelting- unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which house, the brick-maker, the brick-layer, the workmen who attend the could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, furnace, the mill-wright, the forger, and the smith, must all of them join but to no council or senate whatever, and which would their different arts in order to produce them. Smith continues to trace nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who the origins of such goods, concluding that ‘if we examine, I say, all these had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of to exercise it.(20) them, we shall be sensible that without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could Smith is therefore highly sceptical of government intervention, however not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely imagine, the well-meant. easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated.’(18) Two modern and perhaps unexpected examples may serve to Later, the American free trader Leonard Read popularised Smith’s point illustrate Smith’s case. In order to protect tenants from avaricious in his tale of the pencil, and its ‘family tree’ of all the things that went into landlords, many cities of the world have introduced rent control. its production, without anyone forcibly directing the countless activities This amounts to partial expropriation of property rights. Moreover, required for it.(19) the effect of forcing down prices from what they would be in free In the Wealth of Nations, Smith introduces a new approach to exchanges between individuals is to encourage all kinds of costly the study of man. Economists analyse people as they are, not as they evasions from the regulations, while the long-term effect is to reduce ought to be, in contrast to the moral philosophers of the past who the maintenance and supply of housing, for real and potential for millennia had tried to teach people how to be virtuous, without tenants.(21) ‘Next to bombing, rent control seems in many cases to any significant results. For the economist, the task becomes, not the be the most efficient technique so far known for destroying cities.’(22) moral betterment of the preacher’s flock, but the mutual adjustment Again, in order to protect consumers and patients, the United States of individuals pursuing different and often incompatible aims. In the operates the FDA, Food and Drug Administration. Probably it has second place, economists judge human actions mainly by their conse­ saved some lives by hindering some dangerous drugs from entering the quences, in contrast to the moral philosophers of the past who focused market. But it has been estimated that more lives are lost than saved on the intentions of individuals. Those who only seek their own profit, as a result of FDA operations: new and useful drugs enter the market may unwittingly contribute to the common good. On the other hand, much later than they would otherwise do, patients dying or suffering in the actions of those who profess to work for the common good may the meantime, while some drugs are simply not approved (even if they some­times have unintended consequences, not least because they may be used with good results in other countries); the long, costly and ignore economic laws: cumbersome approval process also tends to discourage development of new drugs.(23) The ultimate victims are the sick and frail. The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their (20) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. IV, Ch. II, p. 421. capitals, would not only load himself with a most (21) Milton Friedman and George J. Stigler, Roofs or Ceilings? The Current Housing Problem (Irvington-on-Hudson NY: Foundation for Economic Education, 1946). (22) Assar Lindbeck, The Political Economy of the New Left: An Outsider’s View (New York: Harper & (18) Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. I, p. 14. Row, 1971), p. 39. (19) Leonard E. Read, I, Pencil: May Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read, The Freeman, Vol. 8, No. (23) Sam Peltzman, The Benefits and Costs of New Drug Regulation,Regulating New Drugs, ed. by 12 (December 1958), pp. 32–37. Richard L. Landau (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), pp. 114–211. 116 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 117

Economic anti-interventionism is sometimes referred to as ‘laissez- to ensure fair play and a level field. The third duty Smith mentions is faire’, French for leave it alone. John Maynard Keynes, in a famous essay what would in modern times be called the production of public goods. on ‘The End of Laissez-Faire’, asserted that the phrase ‘laissez-faire’ is These are goods which are necessary or desirable, but which cannot not to be found in the works of Adam Smith.(24) This is only a half-truth. be properly priced in the market because it would be difficult or nearly In a paper as early as 1755 Smith said that ‘Projectors disturb nature in impossible to limit their consumption­ only to those who would pay for the course of her operations on human affairs, and it requires no more them. Smith himself mentions roads, bridges, canals, and harbours, all of than to leave her alone and give her fair play in the pursuit of her ends which would, he says, facilitate commerce.(27) that she may establish her own designs.’(25) It is true, however, that In modern times, economists have devoted much effort to Smith sees a meaningful role for the state: investigating public goods, but here I shall only make three general observations about them. First, even if we would accept that there are According to the system of natural liberty, the public goods, for example primary education, it would not necessarily sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three follow that they should be produced by government. Instead of running duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and schools, the state could ensure that sufficient primary education would intelligible to common understandings: first, the be available, for example by reimbursing parents (up to a pre-set point) duty of protecting the society from the violence for fees paid to schools. In the second place, some goods that appear and invasion of other independent societies; to be public goods, may in fact be priced in the market and produced secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, privately.(28) A textbook example of a public good is the lighthouse. How every member of the society from the injustice or can ships passing by a lighthouse be identified and charged for the service oppression of every other member of it, or the duty provided to them?(29) But in fact ingenious ways have been devised to of establishing an exact administration of justice; charge for the service provided by lighthouses, by so-called tie-in or club and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining contracts: Ships are charged in port for the joint services of the port and certain public works and certain public institutions, of the lighthouses on the way to the port.(30) Thirdly, often the reason which it can never be for the interest of any why some goods cannot be properly priced in the market is that there individual, or small number of individuals, to erect is some kind of a technological barrier, and with progress such a barrier and maintain; because the profit could never repay can sometimes be overcome. It is true, for example, that road tolls and the expence to any individual or small number tunnel fees are costly to implement and cumbersome. But nowadays of individuals, though it may frequently do much machines set up besides roads or tunnels could easily read number plates more than repay it to a great society.(26) of cars passing by and the relevant tolls or fees could then be charged

The second duty of the state, to protect people from the injustice or (27) Ibid., Bk. V, Ch. I, Pt. III, §I, p. 216. oppression of others, certainly may call for some government measures (28) Harold Demsetz, The Private Production of Public Goods, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1970), pp. 293–306. Cf. also Edward Stringham, Private Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). (29) Paul A. Samuelson, Economics: An Introductory Analysis, 6th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964), (24) John M. Keynes, The End of Laissez-Faire (London: Hogarth Press, 1926), p. 19. p. 45. Earlier, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick and Arthur C. Pigou had given the same example of a true public good. (25) Rae, Life of Adam Smith, p. 62. Italics added. (30) Ronald H. Coase, The Lighthouse in Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1974), (26) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. IV, Ch. IX, pp. 184–185. pp. 357–376. 118 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 119

it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society.’(31) In the Wealth of Nations Smith writes that every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can, and that by directing industry

in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.(32) Smith remarks that people of to the driver’s credit card, all in a matter of the same trade seldom meet Here Smith again employs his crucial distinction between intentions without the conversation seconds. It has also become easy to limit the ending in a conspiracy and consequences. By the notion of the invisible hand Smith seems to be against the public. Painting consumption of television to those willing to by Rembrandt van Rijn, referring to a type of explanation rather than to just one kind of outcome. pay for the service. These examples suggest Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild. These are explanations in terms of spontaneous orders (and disorders) that perhaps some goods can be regarded as and unintended consequences (bad as well as good). non-permanent public goods: the prohibitive cost of exclusion may fall Smith’s invisible hand which leads those merely seeking to produce to a workable level. what is of greatest value to themselves—maximising their profits—to promote the public interest, is closely connected to the division of The Invisible Hand labour: If you are doing what you can do better than others, and they are doing what they can do better than you, then obviously everybody Adam Smith’s best-known idea is that of the ‘invisible hand’. He uses benefits from you and them trying to produce what is of greatest value. the notion both in the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of This way, people are taking advantage of one another. They all benefit. Nations. In the former work, he observes that the rich are bound to share It may well be that you are only trying to better your own condition and their wealth with the poor, even if that is far from what they intend, that you do not really care about the public, but in order to achieve your because they consume little more than the poor. ‘They are led by an aim you have to produce something cheaper or better for the public than invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries your competitors. Indeed, it is in the competition in the marketplace of life which would have been made had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants; and thus, without intending (31) Smith, Moral Sentiments, Pt. IV, Ch. I, pp. 264–265. (32) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. IV, Ch. II, p. 421. 120 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 121 where you discover which is your comparative advantage. You make a people to take advantage of one another, and the point of competition is to profit if you are doing something better than your competitors, whereas direct everybody to that occupation or task where their special advantages you make a loss if your competitors are doing this same thing better than can be enjoyed both by themselves and by others. you. It is sometimes said that competition in the free market is like a It should be emphasised that this is not done by coercion. Nobody gladiatorial combat where some win and others lose. It is supposed to be forces people to enter the market to sell their goods or services. However, a ‘dog-eat-dog’ or ‘cut-throat’ struggle, bringing out the worst in people. if they refuse to adjust and move to the professions where they are But this is a total misunderstanding of competition, as it takes place ablest to serve others—and there will probably always be some people within a framework of rules. Consider competition in sports or at school. who refuse to do so—then they will have to bear the cost of their choices It does not consist in trying to harm your competitors, by maiming other themselves. This is what profit and loss in the market are about. Smith is athletes or stealing the notes of other students. That would be in breach however convinced that this would, under normal circumstances, be an of the rules. It would go against the nature of competition. As Smith insignificant minority. Most people most of the time would move to the puts it, if you ‘should justle, or throw down’ any of your competitors, professions, occupations and tasks where their abilities would produce ‘the indulgence of the spectators is entirely at an end. It is a violation the greatest value for themselves. ‘The natural effort of every individual of fair play.’(33) Rather, competition in those two fields consists in you to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom trying to improve your own abilities to excel in the race or the contest, by and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any working hard, training and preparing. This is also the case in business. assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and Competition in the free market does not consist in trying to harm your prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions competitors. Again, that would be in breach of the rules. Rather, you leave with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations; them alone and try hard to offer better or cheaper goods and services though the effect of these obstructions is always more or less either to than they do, not least by finding a niche in the market where you have encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security.’(34) an advantage over them. Smith’s theory is dynamic rather than static: it is not only about Competition in sports or at school is similar to competition in the free coordination, but also about economic growth. In the simple economy market in that it is about self-improvement rather than harming others. of Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday the total product on their island Another similarity is that it is about discovering who is best at doing could increase by each of them concentrating on doing what he could certain things. If we would know beforehand who is the fastest runner or do better than the other one and then trading between themselves. the cleverest mathematician, then we would not need to hold a race or a This may explain why Smith is much more interested in the creation of contest between different individuals. Also, if we would know beforehand wealth than in its ensuing distribution. The task at hand, as he sees it, is who is best at managing a certain enterprise or at solving a given task, then to facilitate the movement of individuals into the positions where they we would simply hire them. But there is one crucial difference between can best serve society, or in other words where they can employ their competition in sports and at school on the one hand and competition abilities to create the greatest value. Therefore, income distribution in the free market on the other hand. It is that in the former kind of in a commercial society will hardly be according to moral merit, as competition there are winners and losers. In the latter kind there need not traditionally conceived. ‘The industrious knave cultivates the soil, the be any losers, for the reason Smith explains: The division of labour enables indolent man leaves it uncultivated. Who ought to reap the harvest?

(33) Smith, Moral Sentiments, Pt. II, Sect. II, Ch. II, p. 120. (34) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. IV, Ch. V, p. 43. 122 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 123

Who starve, and who live in plenty? The natural course of things decides Smith prefers practical considerations to lofty ideals. He says that ‘the it in favour of the knave: the natural sentiments of mankind in favour of care of the universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings, is the the man of virtue.’(35) business of God, and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler Indeed, economic growth can be seen as a great conciliator in the department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers, competition for scarce resources. If you are unhappy with your portion and to the narrowness of his comprehension—the care of his own of the total pie, there are two ways of increasing it. One is to use force to happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country.’(37) transfer an additional part of the pie to you. This solution may be worse than the problem itself, as other people may resist an enforced reduction ‘Das Adam Smith Problem’ of their portions. The other way is to increase the total pie so that all portions of it will increase, including yours. Smith points out how the pie In the last decades of the nineteenth century, German scholars coined can be increased: by the division of labour and free trade. Increasing the a phrase, ‘Das Adam Smith Problem’, to describe what they saw as an pie certainly seems a more peaceful way of alleviating possible discontent inconsistency between Smith’s two major works. In the Theory of Moral than using force to transfer parts of the pie from one person to another. Sentiments, sympathy seems to be prevalent, whereas in the Wealth of Smith is wary of attempts to reconstruct society, arguing against what Nations man is supposed to be guided chiefly by self-interest. Smith he calls ‘the man of system’ who opens the former work with an unequivocal statement: ‘How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer happiness necessary to him though he derives nothing from it, except the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on the pleasure of seeing it.’(38) In the latter work, Smith insists, as I have to establish it completely and in all its parts, without already noted, that it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong brewer, or the baker, that you expect your dinner, but from their regard to prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine their own interest; and that you address yourself, not to their humanity that he can arrange the different members of a great but to their self-love, and never talk to them of your own necessities but society with as much ease as the hand arranges the of their advantages. different pieces upon a chess–board. He does not This is however a paradox, not an inconsistency, and it can be consider that the pieces upon the chess–board have no resolved. The two works deal with different subjects, and they refer to other principle of motion besides that which the hand different social spheres. In theTheory of Moral Sentiments Smith seeks impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess–board an answer to the question what makes man moral, whereas in the Wealth of human society, every single piece has a principle of of Nations he wants to explain what makes nations wealthy. What makes motion of its own, altogether different from that which man moral, according to Smith, is his ability to enter into the situation the legislature might chuse to impress upon it.(36) of others and thus to feel sympathy with them, combined with his regard for his own reputation and his respect for traditional rules of conduct.

(35) Smith, Moral Sentiments, Pt. III, Ch. V, p. 238. (37) Ibid., Pt. VI, Sect. II, Ch. III, p. 348. (36) Ibid., Pt. VI, Sect. II, Ch. II, pp. 342–343. (38) Ibid., Pt. I, Sect. I, Ch. I, p. 3. 124 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 125

What makes nations wealthy, on the other hand, is division of labour and free trade. In his two books, Smith is discussing two different social spheres, or games. Faced with his family, friends and neighbours, man behaves differently than in dealings with strangers and foreigners. A mother normally loves her baby tenderly and is ready to do a lot for it. She extends herself, so to speak, to the baby. But she cannot love all the babies in the world with the same tenderness. There is a difference between the concrete reality in which people live and the abstract society in which they find themselves. In the paragraph just quoted about the butcher, the brewer and the baker on whose benevolence you cannot rely, Smith also makes a crucial observation about man: ‘In civilized society he stands at Hong Kong: a creation of all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, the invisible hand. After tolerant of parents, kind to friends. He is also while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few the Second World War, dominated by self-love, conceited, envious, her economy and those of persons.’(39) Benevolence depends on proximity and circumstances. Singapore and Taiwan grew malicious, quarrelsome, and resentful.(41) But much faster than the fourth Out of sight, out of mind. The further away people are from our moral Chinese economy, in mainland when economists try to explain spontaneous and social sphere, the less we are guided by benevolence towards them. China. Photo: Ben Lieuh Song. cooperation in the international free market, Nevertheless, we need their cooperation, and the only way of obtaining it they have to use the model of individuals is by accepting some rules of conduct in dealings with them and offering pursuing their self-interest. In the Wealth of Nations, Smith is concerned a mutually acceptable price for their goods or services. Relationships with how it is possible for people to make their contribution to the social with family, friends and neighbours are concrete and direct, whereas product as large as possible, and this requires, he thinks, that they are paid relationships with strangers and foreigners are abstract and indirect what their services are worth to those to whom they render them.(42) and based on mutual gain. Indeed, modern research has shown that the In fact, Smith has much more sympathy personally with ordinary cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person workers than with businessmen. ‘People of the same trade seldom can maintain stable relationships is around 150.(40) meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation Smith is not saying that man is or ought to be selfish. He is far subtler ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise than that. He is saying that in his dealings with strangers and foreigners prices,’ he observes, although he adds: ‘It is impossible indeed to prevent man is not guided by a strong sense of benevolence, although perhaps such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be partly by a weak one, but that he is mainly pursuing his self-interest. It is consistent with liberty and justice.’(43) Smith is also concerned that the also a misunderstanding of Smith’s theory that it is about man as a rational maximiser, ‘homo economicus’. Smith holds a much more complex view (41) Ronald H. Coase, Adam Smith’s View of Man, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1976), of human nature. Man has some noble feelings; he is indulgent to children, p. 535. This misunderstanding of economic liberalism is still prevalent, as can be seen by a book of poems recently published about me by an Icelandic left-wing writer, Sigfus Bjartmarsson. He calls it Homo economicus (Reykjavik: mth, 2018) and repeats well-known cliches about capitalism. (42) Friedrich A. Hayek, Adam Smith (1723–1790): His Message in Today’s Language (1976), The Trend (39) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. I, Ch. II, p. 16. of Economic Thinking: Essays on Political Economists and Economic History, ed. by W. W. Bartley and S. Kresge (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1991), pp. 119–122. (40) This is the so-called ‘Dunbar’s Number’. Robin I. M. Dunbar, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?: Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks (London: Faber & Faber, 2010). (43) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. I, Ch. X., Pt. II, p. 130. 126 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 127 division of labour may have some negative side-effects, or, as he puts it, standards which make peaceful coexistence possible.(47) Another that certain ‘inconveniencies’ may be ‘arising from a commercial spirit’. remedy for the loss of authority would be the social monitoring and Division of labour may make workers mindless, turning their work into discipline brought about by small communities within the great society. a dreadful routine, ‘in every commercial nation, the low people are In a free society all kinds of associations, groups and communities will exceedingly stupid.’(44) Also, the commercial spirit may tend to weaken form spontaneously: the churches and congregations, small close-knit certain qualities and dispositions, in particular military vigour and national communities, such as the Irish, the Italian and the Polish ones prowess. Perhaps most importantly, in a large society individuals may in the United States, and the Asian and West Indian ones in the United lose some of their social incentives to behave morally. The ‘man of low Kingdom, voluntary associations, the neighbourhood, the family in a condition’, Smith writes, ‘is far from being a distinguished member of any wide sense, and thousands and millions of other organisations. The city great society. While he remains in his village his conduct may be attended of New York may seem the world’s most anonymous and abstract place. to, and he may be obliged to attend to it himself. In this situation, and in But underneath the concrete jungle there is the business community this situation only, he may have what is called a character to lose. But as with a strict code of conduct (not to speak of dress), the legal and medical soon as he comes to a great city, he is sunk in obscurity and darkness. His professions, the Catholic Church, the Jewish community, intellectuals conduct is observed and attended to by nobody, and he is therefore very of the left and the right, and countless other formal and informal groups. likely to neglect it himself, and to abandon himself to every sort of low Perhaps the best remedy for freedom is more freedom. profligacy and vice.’(45) One obvious remedy for the loss of authority about which Smith is worried is compulsory education, and it is in fact proposed by him.(46) But would it really be underproduced in a free market? Parents have a strong incentive to educate their children, either themselves or at their own cost in institutions. It could even be argued that in an advanced society, private education is less likely to be underproduced than public education. As a part of the populace does not have children, a decision procedure wherein the whole populace participates (a political procedure) is likely to produce less education of children than a decision procedure wherein only the parents participate (a market procedure). Smith’s argument, apparently one for government intervention, could thus perhaps become an argument for government non-intervention. However, in so far as education can be regarded as a public good, its main aim would be less to transmit knowledge than to teach the common

(44) Adam Smith, Report dated 1766, Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. by R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael and P. G. Stein (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 539. (45) Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Bk. V, Ch. I, Pt. III, §III, p. 280. (46) Ibid., §II, pp. 267–269. (47) Cf. Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960), p. 377. 128 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) 129

Edmund Burke

(1729–1797)

wo revolutions of late eighteenth century stand in stark contrast to each other. One was a success, the other a failure. The TAmerican Revolution of 1776 was made by colonists in British North America to uphold ancient English principles, primarily that there should be no taxation without representation. Locke and Hume had taught the Americans that it was right to resist tyranny, and the reluctant revolutionaries had come to regard the British King in Parliament as a tyrant. The American Revolution was successful. The revolutionaries established a state which soon expanded enormously, both by trade and conquest, and which soon became the richest and most powerful country in the world, able to rescue Europe from totalitarianism twice in the twentieth century. The United States of America became a magnet for poor immigrants most of whom found ample opportunities to better their conditions. The French Revolution of 1789 was different. In the beginning, it seemed that the revolutionaries were only trying to assert the same civil and political rights as the citizens of the United Kingdom had enjoyed for a century. But there was hardly any liberal political tradition in France upon which the revolutionaries could draw, and soon the more radical elements took over and tried to impose their programme upon French society, using terror as a means, and the Revolution ended in a military dictator proclaiming himself an emperor and waging war all over Europe. Initially the attempts to replace French absolutism by a constitutional monarchy were followed with sympathetic interest at Burke is a reformist, not a the other side of the Channel, but an eloquent Anglo-Irish politician, reactionary. But when it is not necessary to change, it is necessary Edmund Burke, was one of the first to see that the French Revolution not to change, he thinks. Painting by was going in a different direction to the American one. Burke was a James Barry. conservative because he wanted to preserve liberty, not to abolish it. 130 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 131

Burke’s Life and Works conciliatory policies towards the British colonies in North America, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. He also gave two Edmund Burke was born in Dublin on 12 January 1729. His mother Mary renowned speeches on ‘conciliation with America’. In the second one was Catholic, whereas his father, Richard, probably originally a Catholic, he exclaimed: ‘It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the had conformed to the Established Anglican Church of Ireland in order to ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not be able to practise law. In 1744, young Burke entered Trinity College in know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.’(1) Dublin, graduating four years later. He then went to London, initially to Losing his seat in Wendover, Burke was instead elected in 1774 from read law, but eventually abandoning his studies for a literary career. He Bristol where he gave a famous speech. A representative should listen to married Jane Nugent, the daughter of a Catholic doctor, in 1757, having his constituents and respect their opinion. ‘But his unbiased opinion, his then already published two philosophical works. She bore him two sons, mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice one of whom died in infancy. In 1758, Burke founded a yearly review to you, to any man, or to any set of men living,‘ Burke told his voters. of events and literature, the Annual Register. He also became private ‘These he does not derive from your pleasure, no, nor from the Law and secretary to the Anglo-Irish politician William Hamilton, going with the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of him to Dublin in 1761 when Hamilton was appointed Chief Secretary to which he is deeply answerable. Your Representative owes you, not his the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He returned with Hamilton to London industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, in 1764, but after a bitter break with him, in 1765 he became private if he sacrifices it to your opinion.’(2) In Parliament, Burke supported free secretary to the Marquess of Rockingham, one of the wealthiest and most trade and Catholic emancipation. He was a good friend of Adam Smith powerful men in England. The two main political factions in the House who in 1776 published the Wealth of Nations, arguing for free trade as of Commons were the Whigs who had made the Glorious Revolution of a means of facilitating division of labour which was, Smith taught, the 1688 when King James II was deposed, and the Tories who tended to main reason nations could become wealthy. Indeed, Smith told Burke support the king, although they also by now accepted the Revolution. that ‘he was the only man, who, without communication, thought on’ King George III, who had succeeded to the throne in 1760, was trying to economic issues ‘exactly as he did’.(3) reassert royal power, against opposition from Rockingham, leader of the Burke was not re-elected to the seat from Bristol, but became Whigs. Nevertheless, Rockingham was appointed Prime Minister (First instead in 1780 Member for Malton in Yorkshire. The efforts of Lord of the Treasury) in July 1765, and he immediately repealed the Burke, Rockingham and other British friends of America were in vain. unpopular Stamp Act recently imposed on the British colonies in North Thirteen colonies in North America declared their independence from America. The colonists had resisted the Act on the grounds that there Great Britain and defended it in a war from 1775 to 1783. Rockingham should be no taxation without representation. formed a government again in March 1782 in order to make peace with In December 1765 Burke entered the House of Commons as Member the colonies, and Burke was appointed Paymaster of the Forces. But for Wendover in Buckinghamshire and immediately gained a reputation Rockingham died in July, and Burke lost his job. He was reappointed in as a powerful orator. His ally Rockingham fell however from power after only a year, in July 1766. In 1768, Burke became a country gentleman (1) Burke, Speech on Moving Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies (1775), Select Works of when he bought an estate near Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. He Edmund Burke, Vol. 1 (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1999), pp. 250–251. All four volumes of the Select Works are accessible at the website of Liberty Fund. also joined a dining club in London whose members included three (2) Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol (3 November 1774), Select Works, Vol. 4 (Indianapolis IN: other prominent writers, Samuel Johnson, Edward Gibbon and Oliver Liberty Fund, 1999), p. 11. Goldsmith. In 1770, Burke published a defence of Rockingham’s (3) Robert Bisset, The Life of Edmund Burke, Vol. II, 2nd ed. (London: George Cawthorn, 1800), p. 429. 132 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 133

contribution to political theory and provoked several responses in Great Britain and France, the best-known being Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution by Thomas Paine. Burke employed all his rhetorical skills to argue against those of his compatriots who were in sympathy with the Revolution and to criticise the French revolutionaries, especially the Jacobins who were by late 1790 leading the way. ‘It is a virile prose and I can think of no one who wrote with so much force combined with so much elegance,’ English novelist William Somerset Maugham observed.(4) In France, King Lewis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette read his book with great satisfaction. But Burke’s fierce opposition to the French Revolution caused a rift with the Whigs, while the Tories never fully accepted him. In 1793, the French revolutionaries declared war on Great Britain, and Burke forcefully supported the British war efforts and protested against any peace offers. ‘Ifyour hands

General George Washington are not on your swords, their knives will be at your throats,’ he wrote in 1783, but only briefly, and did not hold office crossing the Delaware a letter. ‘There is no medium,—there is no temperament,—there is no River. Burke supported the (5) after that. The Tories, under William Pitt the American Revolution which compromise with Jacobinism.’ Younger, came into power in December 1783, was made to preserve liberal Burke retired from Parliament in 1794. His last days were not happy. He principles such as no taxation and Burke spent the rest of his parliamentary without representation. had lost many personal friends among the Whigs as a result of his critique career in opposition. From 1788, he was Painting by Emanuel Leutze. of the Revolution, and in 1794, his son Richard, the apple of his eyes, died. engaged in the impeachment in the House He was also saddled with debt from the time he bought his estate. He had of Commons of Warren Hastings, who had been Governor-General of many admirers in the British Establishment, but also some enemies. When Bengal. Hastings was accused of various abuses of power. For Burke, the it was criticised by the Duke of Bedford in the summer of 1795 that he had Indian issue had begun in commerce, but ended in empire. The British been granted a government pension, he replied in a brilliant ‘Letter to a administration in India had not sufficiently respected local traditions Noble Lord’. He pointed out that he had not asked for the pension himself, and customs. The House of Commons eventually impeached Hastings, and he recalled how the first Earl of Bedford had received his original but in 1795 the judgement was overturned by the House of Lords, to the wealth from a capricious tyrant. ‘Mine was from a mild and benevolent disappointment, but not the surprise, of Burke. sovereign; his from Henry the Eighth.’(6) Burke reminded the Duke that In the House of Commons, Burke was also preoccupied with the he would certainly not be safe under revolutionaries: French Revolution which began in the spring of 1789. He feared that the revolutionary fervour might be transmitted to England. A young Frenchman, Charles Jean-François Depont, who had visited the Burke (4) W. Somerset Maugham, After Reading Burke, The Vagrant Mood (London: William Heinemann, 1922), p. 148. family in 1785, had written to Burke to ask him his opinion about the (5) Letter to William Windham 30 December 1794. The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VIII: French Revolution. The letters he sent to Depont grew into a book, September 1794–April 1796, ed. by R. B. McDowell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 104. Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in the beginning of (6) Burke, Letter to a Noble Lord (February 1796), Further Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. November 1790. Burke’s work was soon recognised as a significant by Daniel E. Ritchie (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1992), p. 303. 134 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 135

They are the Duke of Bedford’s natural hunters; The First Stages of the Revolution and he is their natural game. Because he is not very profoundly reflecting, he sleeps in profound security: When Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France in they, on the contrary, are always vigilant, active, November 1790, the Revolution was still in its first stages. The prelude enterprizing, and though far removed from any to it was the economic crisis of the 1780s in France, partly derived from knowledge, which makes men estimable or useful, in bad harvests; they were, in turn, partly caused by a massive volcanic all the instruments and resources of evil, their leaders eruption in Iceland which began in June 1783 and lasted for eight are not meanly instructed, or insufficiently furnished. months, creating a mist which was driven by winds from Iceland to the In the French Revolution every thing is new; and, from continent. Benjamin Franklin observed in 1784 that in the summer want of preparation to meet so unlooked for an evil, of 1783, ‘there existed a constant fog over all Europe, and great part of every thing is dangerous. Never, before this time, was North America’.(10) The economic crisis led to a fiscal crisis in France. a set of literary men, converted into a gang of robbers In August 1788, the French Treasury was declared empty, and the Paris and assassins.(7) Parlement, an assembly of ennobled judges, refused to lend more money to the Crown. The Minister of Finance saw no way out but to summon The Jacobins used evil means to attain what they thought of as the the Estates General, an assembly of three houses, the nobility, clergy common good. ‘Their humanity is at their horizon—and, like the horizon, and commoners, which had not met since 1614. It was decided that it always flies before them.’(8) Burke also found sufficient energy to the Estates General would convene on 5 May 1789 and that the house compose several letters against a ‘regicide peace’, warning his compatriots of commoners would have double as many deputies as each of the two in no uncertain terms against the Jacobins and anticipating twentieth other houses. The state received temporary relief through a large loan, century totalitarianism: given by French commoners on the condition that the Estates General would have extensive powers. The elections to the house of commoners, Individuality is left out of their scheme of government. called the Third Estate, caused commotion all over France. The abbot The State is all in all. Everything is referred to the Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès wrote in a pamphlet: ‘What is the Third production of force; afterwards, everything is trusted Estate? Everything. What is it now? Nothing. What does it want to be? to the use of it. It is military in its principle, in its Something!’(11) Whereas the answers to the two first questions were maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The obvious exaggerations about contemporary conditions in France, the State has dominion and conquest for its sole objects— third answer, ‘Something,’ was soon discovered. dominion over minds by proselytism, over bodies by The Estates General was formally opened on 5 May 1789 at Versailles arms.(9) where King Lewis XVI resided. But perhaps the first step into the direction of the Revolution was taken the next day when the deputies of Burke died shortly after he uttered those prophetic words, on 9 July 1797. the Third Estate insisted that the three houses or Estates should meet together, not separately as had been the plan. They would have had a clear

(7) Ibid., p. 312. (8) Ibid., p. 315. (10) Benjamin Franklin, Meteorological Imaginations and Conjectures, Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, Vol. II (London: Warrington, 1785), p. 359. (9) Burke, On the Genius and Character of the French Revolution as it regards other Nations, Select Works, Vol. 3, p. 182. (11) Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, Qu’est-ce le Tiers-État? (January 1789). 136 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 137

Inauguration of the Estates General in Versailles 5 May 1789. The king, Louis XVI, presides over the meeting. The clergy sits to the left, the Third Estate in the middle and the nobility to the right. The demand for joining the three Estates into one Assembly was really for creating one centre of power. Painting by Auguste Couder.

majority if the three Estates were unified. The nobility flatly refused. Estates to meet separately. The Third Estate ignored his instructions, Later in the month, both the clergy and the nobility however renounced and one member shouted: ‘We are assembled here by the Will of the their tax privileges. On 10 June the deputies of the Third Estate, at the People!’ Two days later, some nobles, under the leadership of the king’s initiative of Sieyès, formally invited the other two Estates to join their cousin, the Duke of Orléans, joined the meetings of the Third Estate. The meetings. A few days later some deputies of the clergy decided to accept king hesitated, fearing that he could not rely on the loyalty of his troops, the invitation. A big step was taken on 17 June when the deputies of the and on 27 June he reversed course, instructing the nobility and clergy to Third Estate declared themselves the National Assembly. Two days later, meet with the Third Estate. The National Assembly, now recognised by the deputies of the clergy decided to join them. The king felt that matters the king, started writing a new constitution for France, and on 9 July it were getting out of hand and on 20 June he had the meeting hall of the redefined itself as the National Constituent Assembly. Soon thereafter, Third Estate closed and locked. Undaunted, the deputies met instead riots started in Paris, with French soldiers mostly siding with the crowds, in an indoor tennis court where they vowed to give a new constitution whereas Swiss and German mercenaries stayed loyal to the king. The to France. On 23 June the king addressed the Estates General, declared residence of the Duke of Orléans in Paris, Palais Royal, became a centre decisions of the ‘National Assembly’ invalid and instructed the three of rebellious activities. On 14 July, a large crowd stormed a notorious 138 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 139 royal prison the Bastille. After some resistance, the prison governor, In June 1790, the Assembly abolished titles and other privileges of Bernard de Launay, surrendered. The furious mob killed Launay, sawed the hereditary nobility, and in July it ordered clergymen to become his head off, put it on a pike and paraded it through the streets of Paris. government servants. By now, King Lewis XVI and his family were In an ironic twist, the prison turned out to be virtually empty, with only virtual prisoners in the Tuileries, helplessly watching the revolutionary seven inmates. tide rise ever higher. It was the Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt who brought the news It was at this point in time that Burke published his book. For him, to King Lewis XVI in Versailles. ‘It is a revolt, then,’ the king said. ‘Sir! it the crux of the matter was that the French revolutionaries had at an is a revolution,’ the duke replied.(12) Again the king hesitated and tried to early stage, some even before the Estates General first met in May 1789, reach an understanding with deputies of the Third Estate, withdrawing adopted the doctrine of absolute sovereignty, without any consideration royal troops from Paris and accepting the establishment of a National for traditional liberties or any respect for existing institutions. Burke did Guard out of his control. Some members of his family and of the nobility not doubt that the old regime in France was in need of reform: were less sanguine and fled France in the next few days. On 22 July an angry mob seized the intendant of Paris, Louis de Sauvigny, blaming The absolute monarchy was at an end. It breathed him for food shortages in the city. He was beaten and stoned and shown its last, without a groan, without struggle, without the severed head of his father-in-law before he was hanged from a lamp convulsion. All the struggle, all the dissension post in the front of the city hall, Hôtel de Ville. All kinds of wild rumours arose afterwards upon the preference of a despotic circulated around France and riots broke out in several cities. On 27 democracy to a government of reciprocal controul. The August, the National Constituent Assembly adopted the ‘Declaration triumph of the victorious party was over the principles of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’. In early October a rumour of a British constitution.(14) reached Paris that royal guards had trampled on the revolutionary symbol, the tricolour. A crowd marched to Versailles, invaded the palace But the choice had been between ‘despotic democracy’ where the People and demanded that the king and his family accompanied them back to replaced the King, and ‘reciprocal control’ as in the United Kingdom. It Paris. The severed heads of two royal guards killed in the attack on the had been between revolution or reform. ‘A state without the means of palace were put on pikes in front of the parade.(13) The royal family took some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such up residence in the Tuileries Palace, while the National Constituent means it might even risque the loss of that part of the constitution which Assembly also moved to the capital. In November, the Assembly found a it wished the most religiously to preserve,’ Burke wrote.(15) But the two solution to the financial difficulties: it was to confiscate the vast holdings principles of correction and conservation had to operate together, not of the Catholic Church in France. In December, the Assembly abolished just one of them, as was the case in France. the traditional division of France into provinces and introduced When Burke described the treatment of the royal family which in departments, roughly equal in size. October 1789 had been marched by a mob from Versailles to the Tuileries, In the next few months, the moves by the Assembly against the in a famous passage he expressed his admiration for the ‘serene patience’ Church caused widespread opposition and even riots in the provinces. of Queen Marie Antoinette:

(12) Hippolyte Taine, The French Revolution, Vol. I (1878), tran. by John Durand (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2002), Bk. I, Ch. I, I, p. 3. (14) Burke, Reflections, p. 159. (13) Ibid., Ch. IV, V, p. 122. (15) Ibid., p. 108–109. 140 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 141

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the to discover the latent wisdom which prevails queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; in them. If they find what they seek, (and they and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seldom fail) they think it more wise to continue the seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the away the coat of prejudice, and to leave nothing elevated sphere she just began to move in; glittering but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what an heart must I and an affection which will give it permanence. have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; and that fall! Little did I dream when she added it previously engages the mind in a steady course titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man’s in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and part of his nature.(17) of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a Burke was full of forebodings about the Revolution. look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, oeconomists, and On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, extinguished for ever.(16) and which is as void of solid wisdom, as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be supported only Burke criticised the revolutionaries for rejecting traditions. They had no by their own terrors, and by the concern which each compass to govern them; they did not know to what they were steering: individual may find in them from his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own private We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on interests. In the groves of their academy, at the end of his own private stock of reason; because we suspect every visto, you see nothing but the gallows.(18) that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves Events in France in the next few years confirmed his fears, except that a of the general bank and capital of nations, and of new technology of executing people had been adopted, the guillotine in ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of place of the noose. exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity

(17) Ibid., p. 102–103. (16) Ibid., p. 89. (18) Ibid., p. 91. 142 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 143

The Terror

Soon after Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, the Revolution moved on to the next stage. The revolutionaries had already confiscated Church property and imprisoned the Royal Family in all but name. In January 1791, priests were ordered to take an oath to the Nation, but a majority refused. After that two churches were operating in France, the official one supported by the state, and a clandestine one, mainly enjoying support outside Paris. In the spring, the National Constituent Assembly transformed a new church in Paris into a mausoleum for illustrious citizens, the Panthéon. In June the Royal Family tried to flee from Paris to a camp with loyal soldiers on the French border, but they were recognised on the way and turned back. The National Constituent Assembly suspended the authority of the king until a new constitution would be ratified. In September 1791, King Lewis XVI formally accepted the new Constitution, and a new Legislative Assembly was elected to replace the National Constituent Assembly. In February 1792, domestic The storming of the Bastille passports were introduced in France and the Legislative Assembly on 14 July 1789. The prison Executions by the guillotine immediately confiscated émigré properties. In April, the Legislative Assembly declared turned out to be almost empty, started and soon took on a momentum of one of the many ironies of war on the Holy Roman Empire and a French army invaded the Austrian the Revolution. Painting by an their own. Royalist riots in Brittany, Vendée Netherlands, or Belgium. It showed the rampant lawlessness in France unknown artist. and Dauphiné and the capitulation of a that in June a rabble invaded the Tuileries Palace and forced King Lewis French force at Verdun again infuriated the XVI to wear a red liberty cap and drink to the health of the nation. A public mob and its leaders, and prisoners in Paris were massacred. One of them warning in July by an Austrian commander against harming the Royal was a close friend of the Queen, the Princess Lamballe. She was stabbed Family infuriated the Paris mob, with demands for the king’s removal to death by a crowd, with her body mutilated and the head severed off becoming ever louder. and put on a pike and paraded through the streets of Paris, and beneath On 10 August 1792 revolutionary elements of the National Guard Marie Antoinette’s window in her prison at the Temple. stormed the Tuileries Palace, massacring the Swiss Guards defending The new National Convention held its first session on 20 September the Palace. The Royal Family sought refuge in the Legislative Assembly 1792 and decided to abolish the monarchy, proclaiming a republic two days which temporarily suspended the authority of the king and called for the later. A number of victories on the battlefield made the revolutionaries election of a new National Convention. The Royal Family subsequently more confident. In November the Convention asserted a right to intervene was imprisoned in a medieval fortress, the Temple. Ironically, the in any country ‘where the people desire to recover their freedom’. In Temple had been built by the Order of Knights Templars whom the king’s December, King Lewis XVI was tried before the Convention. He was found kinsman, King Philip IV, had destroyed centuries earlier. In August 1792, guilty of conspiracy against public liberty with all votes cast and sentenced the Legislative Assembly yielded to loud demands by the Jacobins, led to death with a majority of one, 361 against 360. One of those voting for his by Maximilien Robespierre, to establish a Revolutionary Tribunal. execution was his cousin, the Duke of Orléans. When the king wanted to 144 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 145 address the crowd at his execution on 21 January, his words were drowned moderate revolutionaries. But the Republican generals knew that they out by a drum roll. The whole of Europe followed what was happening in were fighting for their lives and managed to defend France against a France, alternatively with horror, fear or hope. A few days after the king’s coalition of most European powers. One of them in particular, Napoleon execution the National Convention declared war on Britain and the Dutch Bonaparte, excelled in the battlefields of Northern Italy. In the midst Republic. In March royalists rose up in Brittany and the Vendée, but of the terror, in April 1794, the Jacobin leader, Robespierre, found time they were brutally put down. In April, a Committee of Public Safety was to arrange for the transfer of the ashes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to established. The Jacobins became ever more aggressive. In the beginning the Panthéon. His fellow Jacobins were beginning however to fear for of June, an armed crowd stormed the hall of the National Convention and their own lives, and in July they turned against him. On 28 July 1794 forced it to vote for the arrest of some moderate deputies. Robespierre was beheaded, and subsequently most of his followers Catholics in the countryside revolted against the Jacobins, but on 24 were captured and executed. The Terror was at an end. Uprisings by the June 1793 a new Constitution was ratified by the National Convention. Jacobins failed and the Revolutionary Tribunal was abolished. Shortly In July, the son of King Lewis XVI and Marie Antoinette, recognised as afterwards, the son of Lewis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Lewis XVII, died king by royalists, was taken from his mother and put into the custody in prison. He had been badly treated. The doctor who did an autopsy on of a cobbler. In the beginning of September the mob again stormed the him was shocked by the many scars he found on his body. In August 1794 hall of the National Convention and demanded the arrest of counter- yet another Consti­ ­tution was adopted by the National Convention, and revolution­aries. The government imposed draconian economic regu­ a Directory, with five members, was appointed. Then, on 9 November lations, and adopted a new calendar, starting on 22 September 1792 1799, General Bonaparte­ led a coup. The French Revolution had ended when the Republic was founded. On 16 October 1793 Queen Marie in military dictatorship. Antoinette was beheaded. A month later, the Cathedral of Notre Dame Chinese communist Zhou Enlai was once asked by American visitors was transformed into a ‘Temple of Reason’, and all churches and places about the impact of the French Revolution. ‘It is too soon to say,’ he replied. of worship in Paris were closed. Between November 1793 and February This has been quoted as an example of the wisdom of the far-sighted 1794, mass executions by drowning took place in Nantes in the Vendée, Chinese leaders. The story is however based on a misunderstanding. claiming the lives of thousands of people. The victims, men, women and Zhou was talking about the Paris riots of May 1968.(20) Nevertheless, children, often tied together or to heavy stones, were put out to the river the story is noteworthy on two accounts. First, the Chinese communist Loire in barges and thrown overboard or alternatively the barges were leaders, including Zhou, were far from being wise, far-sighted old sages, sunk while the executioners escaped in small boats.(19) drawing strength from an ancient civilisation. They were cruel, narrow- The slogan of the Revolution was Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Per­ minded fanatics who slaughtered millions of people after they won the haps the suggestion by one of the revolutionaries, Nicolas Chamfort, Chinese Civil War in 1949 and who let no less than 44 million die of is more appropriate: Be my brother, or I’ll kill you. The Terror started hunger during the so-called ‘Great Leap Forward’ in 1958–1962.(21) Many in September 1793. The Revolution was devouring her own children, of the unflattering words Burke used about the Jacobins would apply to not only nobles and priests of the old regime. The King’s cousin, the them as well. In the second place, it is indeed not too soon to say. Burke Duke of Orléans, who was now calling himself Philippe Égalite, was beheaded in November 1793. In the next few months, so were many (20) Charles W. Freeman, the translator present at the exchange in 1972, disclosed this, Financial Times 10 June 2011. (21) Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958– 62 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010); The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Communist Revolution (19) Simon Schama, Citizens (London: Penguin, 1989), p. 789. 1945–1957 (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). 146 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 147 more or less said it in his Reflections: The French Revolution cost a lot of Alfred Cobban pointed out that the Revolution did little to change human lives and turned the lives of many more upside down, while it did French society: it remained largely a rural society with small farms until not deliver any significant benefits for most people. Not only was Burke’s industrialisation in the latter half of the nineteenth century.(26) François case strengthened by the events in France that followed the publication Furet saw the French Revolution as primarily a clash of political ideas. of his book, but also by scholars who closely studied the Revolution. In The revolutionaries were ideologues who consciously rejected the the mid-nineteenth century, Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out that the English model of mixed government, developed in the previous century excesses of the Revolution were made possible by the centralisation and a half. Instead, they tried to impose the idea of unlimited democracy of French society in the previous two centuries under the Bourbon upon French society. The French Revolution was not a breakthrough, kings. The Revolution was the completion of an historical trend, not a it was a breakdown, brought about by embittered outsiders who seized deviation from it. The King was simply replaced by the People, or rather the opportunity provided by the economic crisis of the 1780s.(27) In a by those who succeeded in convincing themselves and others that they readable, best-selling book, Sir Simon Schama adopts a similar approach, were speaking on behalf of the People.(22) In the late nineteenth century, but excels in telling stories about the victims of the Revolution, such as Hippolyte Taine described in detail how the Revolution was the work of Queen Marie Antoinette. He believes, like Burke, that the Terror was a few unscrupulous, merciless fanatics, steeped in Rousseau’s fantasies inherent in the Revolution. ‘Violence was the necessary condition of about a general will and direct democracy.(23) the Revolution, and that from the very beginning, from the summer of It is estimated that during the Terror a total of 40,000 people were 1789.’(28) killed by the revolutionaries, in addition to all those who lost their lives because of famine, disease or war; half a million were imprisoned.(24) Burke’s Defence of Established Institutions In the first half of the twentieth century, orthodox Marxists tried to reinterpret the French Revolution as a class war, a passage from feudalism Burke is a traditionalist. He says that ‘instead of quarrelling with to capitalism, with the ‘bourgeoisie’ seizing power from the nobility, but establishments, as some do, who have made a philosophy and a religion refusing to share it with the proletariat. They played down the Terror, of their hostility to such institutions, we cleave closely to them. We explaining it as a response to the counter-revolution, embodied in French are resolved to keep an established church, an established monarchy, émigrés and their foreign allies. For them, the French Revolution was a an established aristocracy, and an established democracy, each in social revolution with political consequences.(25) In the latter half of the the degree it exists, and in no greater.’(29) Nevertheless, Burke is no twentieth century, scholars challenging orthodox Marxism returned reactionary, as can be shown by an examination of his arguments for to a largely Burkean interpretation of the French Revolution (even if these four institutions. His support for a state religion is based on they themselves sometimes were left-liberals). They argued that the what he saw as the need for a shared morality, transmitted from one French Revolution was a political revolution with social consequences. generation to another, making their conduct proper and predictable,

(22) Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution, tran. by John Bonner (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856). (26) Alfred Cobban, The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964). (23) Hippolyte Taine, The French Revolution, Vols. 1–3, tran. by John Durand (New York: Henry Holt, 1878). (27) François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution, tran. by Elberg Forster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). (24) Donald Greer, The Incidence of the Terror during the French Revolution (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1935). (28) Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Viking, 1989), p. xv. (25) Albert Mathiez, The French Revolution, tran. by C. A. Philips (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928). (29) Burke, Reflections, pp. 186–187. 148 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 149

is not too different from the observation that if you stop believing in God, you will not believe in nothing: you will believe in anything.(32) It should be noted that one effect of the confiscation of church property in France by the revolutionaries was greatly to reduce the ability of the Church to engage in its traditional charity work for the poor and weak. This group, now thrown on the resources of a state bent on warfare, suffered considerably. One reason why conservative liberals might have sympathy with Christianity is that it, unlike some other religions, advocates the separation of religious and secular authorities. Of course, this has not always been respected in practice. Often Christian persecution of infidels and heretics in the past is invoked by those who doubt the merits of religion as a civilising social force. ‘Thank God I have arrived at a Christian country.—I behold a gallows!’ But it should be recalled that in the Spanish conquest of America, clergymen were in the forefront defending Indians against the cruelty of the colonialists. Modern research has also found Burke’s prediction that the Revolution would end in terror, that the notorious Spanish Inquisition was not nearly as bad as often turned out to be accurate: Queen suggested. For example, only 1 per cent of the 125,000 people tried in Marie Antoinette on the way to (33) the guillotine on 16 October 1793. Spain by church tribunals as heretics were executed. Without trying Drawing by Jacques-Louis David. in any way to defend the Inquisition it should also be noted that its main purpose was to discover ‘cheating’, or those of the Jewish faith who said but also on the need to make frail human beings aware that there might they had converted to Christianity, but in fact had not done so. be a higher and greater power than they possessed themselves and that Perhaps an established religion is not as relevant today as it was this power might set limits on what is permitted. Dostoevsky famously in Burke’s time. What he said about the old regime in France may not said that if God did not exist, then everything would be permitted.(30) apply to the connection between today’s church and the state, not One of his examples was of eight-year boy who had mistakenly thrown least in light of the fact that the most religious and moral people in a stone at the paw of a general’s favourite dog. The general captured the world apparently are the citizens of the United States where there the boy and ordered his flock of fierce hounds to devour him. How can is a complete separation between religion and the state. Moreover, this be permitted? Certainly not if God exists. Burke was afraid ‘(being even if an established morality may be desirable and even necessary well aware that the mind will not endure a void) that some uncouth, for stability, it is not obvious that it needs to be upheld by a belief in pernicious, and degrading superstition, might take place of it’.(31) This supernatural forces, as the examples of the Romans and the Japanese

(30) This is a paraphrase of a question: ‘Without God and the future life? It means everything is (32) This is often attributed to G. K. Chesterton, but not found in his writings. permitted now, one can do anything?’ Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Pt. 4, Bk. 11, Ch. 4, tran. by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Berkeley CA: North Point Press, 1990), p. 589. (33) This emerges after the release of hitherto secret documents from the Vatican. Sophie Arie, Historians say Inquisition wasn’t that bad, Guardian 16 June 2004. Cf. also Edward Peters, Inquisition (31) Burke, Reflections, p. 186. (Oakland CA: University of California Press, 1989). 150 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 151 show. Burke could answer that these were the traditions of the Romans munities, for example his contemporaries in the Swiss Federation or and the Japanese and that therefore they ought to be respected. What in several city-states of Northern Italy and Germany. Burke would not is essential for him is not the belief in supernatural forces, but rather have agreed with Cardinal William of Sabina who in 1247 expressed his the ability to civilise people, make their behaviour predictable and indignation over the fact that the Icelandic Commonwealth was not proper. On his principles, this would be the task of the Anglican Church ruled by a king ‘like all others in the world’.(35) in England, the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and the Catholic However outdated and irrelevant monarchy may appear to many, a Church in Ireland. possible argument for it is that it tends to instil in the general public a healthy On a similar note, Burke’s support for an ‘established monarchy’ is respect for continuity. A head of state performs a symbolic function, staying not based on the divine rights of kings, but on stability, continuity and out of controversy and speaking for the nation when it seems necessary the division of powers and loyalties. Therefore the British crown should and proper. It may be prudent to distinguish this role from that of a battle- pass from one generation to another, instead of the king being in any scarred, elected leader of government. Perhaps those who happen to hold way, directly or indirectly, elected or chosen by the population: political power should not also enjoy the historical glory. Burke believes that there should be many sources of authority, not only one, and that monarchy I shall beg leave, before I go any further, to take notice can be one of them. He may have a point. At the time when Beatrix was Queen of some paltry artifices, which the abettors of election as of the Netherlands, I once spoke with a Dutch political observer who told me the only lawful title to the crown, are ready to employ, that he was no monarchist, but that he could observe that Dutch politicians in order to render the support of the just principles were somewhat in awe of their queen. ‘She keeps them in check,’ he said with of our constitution a task somewhat invidious. These a chuckle. Some of the freest and stablest regimes in Europe are monarchies, sophisters substitute a fictitious cause, and feigned Great Britain, the three Scandinavian countries and the Benelux countries, personages, in whose favour they suppose you engaged, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Canada, Australia and New whenever you defend the inheritable nature of the Zealand have also all chosen to remain monarchies, perhaps to emphasise crown. It is common with them to dispute as if they their historical roots. were in a conflict with some of those exploded fanatics Consider also two counter-factual cases from other continents. First, of slavery, who formerly maintained, what I believe Brazil was a monarchy from 1822 to 1889, under the reign of two relatively no creature now maintains, “that the crown is held liberal emperors. They enjoyed respect, but had limited power. The second by divine, hereditary, and indefeasible right”. These one, Pedro II, was deposed by a military clique that was under the influence old fanatics of single arbitrary power dogmatized as if of French positivism and found the monarchy obsolete. Since then Brazil hereditary royalty was the only lawful government in has not been very stable politically. Possibly, she might have been better the world, just as our new fanatics of popular arbitrary off if the monarchy had been maintained, exercising some constraints on power maintain that a popular election is the sole lawful politicians and generals. In the second place, during the British Raj India source of authority.(34) was an amalgamation of many political and cultural communities, some of which were ruled by princes, maharajahs, nizams and nawabs. They were For Burke it is crucial that the British monarchy has withstood the test of time. Other forms of government might fit other nations and com­ (35) Sturla Thordson, Hakonar Saga, Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles, Vol. II, ed. by Gudbrand Vigfusson (London: Eyre and Spottiswood, 1887), p. 252. (34) Burke, Reflections, pp. 113–114. 152 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 153

Evolution instead of revolution: The House of Commons in 1793–1794. Burke is 3rd from right in 2nd row of the Whig opposition bench. The Whig leader, Charles James Fox, is 6th from right in 1st row. Standing opposite them and speaking is the Tory leader, Prime Minister William Pitt. Painting by Karl Anton Hickel. 154 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 155 largely left alone by the British. But after India was partitioned into two natural aristocracy’ which is ‘taught to respect one’s self’ and is ‘habit­ countries in 1947, India and Pakistan, mostly on religious lines and at a uated to the censorial inspection of the publick eye’.(37) great cost in human lives, the princes of Hyderabad, Mysore, Jammu and Modern research has shown that the French aristocracy of the Old Kashmir­ and other Indian territories were replaced by elected politicians, Regime was by no means closed to talented or rich commoners. From many of them steeped in Fabian socialism. Since then, Pakistan, a totally the middle of the eighteenth century to the French Revolution, the artificial­ country, has split into two, with East Pakistan becoming Bangla­ French king granted some 6,500 ennoblements: between one-fourth desh in 1971. Under their elected rulers, these three countries have not and one-third of noble families had achieved their status within the done nearly as well as some other former British territories overseas, such past fifty years.(38) It was difficult, but not impossible, for people born in as Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. In retrospect, would modest circumstances to leave them behind, both in France and Britain. it not have been more prudent to respect the traditional regimes and Social and economic inequality is not only about some people being at boundaries­ of the Indian subcontinent, perhaps within a loose federation? the lowest level: it is also about other people being at higher levels and At least it is likely that a lot of human lives would have been spared and also acting as inspirations and examples, and also as countervailing forces that more experiments in economic policies would have been conducted, to government power. Some may envy those at higher levels, but others not just Fabian socialism over the whole subcontinent. will see them as people to admire and as sources not only of inspiration, Modern readers may be apt to misunderstand Burke’s argu­ment for but also of aspiration. This still seems to apply. In England outstanding ‘established aristocracy’. He is not advocating a closed caste system, but scholars are routinely knighted, for example the philosophers Sir Karl rather a flexible social structure of different classes and ranks where Popper and Sir Roger Scruton and the historian Sir Simon Schama, or people in the upper classes are born into responsibility, and where other they are created life peers, for example Lord Ralph Harris, Director of people of ability and achievement can hope eventually to join their ranks. the Institute of Economic Affairs, the most influential think tank in the It is a structure in which some people are seen as role models for others. Thatcher years, and Lord Peter Bauer, the development economist. It Burke’s friend, Adam Smith, makes the same point: may be good for a society to have such resources to show respect and appreciation to people of achievement, and it in no ways detracts from A man of rank and fortune is by his station the them that in the United Kingdom some titles are inherited. In fact, distinguished member of a great society, who attend to it might make them more valuable, because then those knighted or every part of his conduct, and who thereby oblige him ennobled enter into an historical community. to attend to every part of it himself. His authority and Burke is far from being an apologist of the titled, rich or powerful. ‘I consideration depend very much upon the respect which am accused, I am told abroad, of being a man of aristocratic principles,’ this society bears to him. He dare not do any thing which he says in one of his speeches. ‘If by aristocracy they mean the peers, would disgrace or discredit him in it, and he is obliged to a I have no vulgar admiration, nor any vulgar antipathy towards them; very strict observation of that species of morals, whether I hold their order in cold and decent respect.’ But the aristocracy per­ liberal or austere, which the general consent of this forms a useful function, even if that may not always be their intention: society proscribes to persons of rank and fortune.(36)

Burke is expressing something similar when he speaks of the ‘true (37) Burke, An Appeal to the Old Whigs from the New, Further Reflections, p. 168. (38) Donald M. G. Sutherland, France, 1789–1815: Revolution and Counterrevolution (New York: Oxford (36) Smith, Wealth of Nations, Vol. 2, Bk. V, Ch. I, Pt. III, §3, p. 280. University Press, 1986), p. 17. 156 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 157

I hold them to be of an absolute necessity in the they are ruling themselves. For Burke, democracy is essentially majority Constitution; but I think they are only good when kept rule, and he abhors mob rule as he observes during the Revolution in within their proper bounds. I trust, whenever there Paris. There is a crucial difference between individuals within the aristo­ has been a dispute between these Houses, the part I cracy and the multitude which have taken has not been equivocal. If by the aristocracy (which, indeed, comes nearer to the point) they mean an are less under responsibility to one of the greatest adherence to the rich and powerful against the poor and controlling powers on earth, the sense of fame and weak, this would, indeed, be a very extraordinary part. I estimation. The share of infamy that is likely to fall have incurred the odium of gentlemen in this House for to the lot of each individual in public acts, is small not paying sufficient regard to men of ample property. indeed; the operation of opinion being in the inverse When, indeed, the smallest rights of the poorest people ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their in the kingdom are in question, I would set my face own approbation of their own acts has to them the against any act of pride and power countenanced by appearance of a public judgment in their favour. A the highest that are in it; and if it should come to the perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless last extremity, and to a contest of blood,—God forbid! thing in the world.(40) God forbid!—my part is taken: I would take my fate with the poor and low and feeble. But if these people came Burke also warns against the danger of the majority oppressing the to turn their liberty into a cloak for maliciousness, and minority.(41) to seek a privilege of exemption, not from power, but Burke’s conception of the nature and limits of democracy has to be from the rules of morality and virtuous discipline, then understood in terms of his notion of the social contract that ties together I would join my hand to make them feel the force which past, present and coming generations. It is not confined to those who a few united in a good cause have over a multitude of the happen to have the vote at some particular point in time. Our ancestors profligate and ferocious.(39) and descendants have to be regarded as well as our contemporaries. ‘It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time,’ Burke has sympathy for the poor, but not for an anonymous and ir­ English writer Gilbert Chesterton wrote. ‘Tradition means giving votes responsible mob. Both the aristocracy and the lower classes have to be to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of kept ‘within their proper bounds’, as he puts it. the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy Burke places ‘established democracy’ besides monarchy, religion and of those who merely happen to be walking about.’(42) aristocracy as a pillar of a free and stable order. Some bodies should be elected, for example the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. Government certainly should be by consent. But Burke explicitly rejects Rousseau’s idea that the People are invested with absolute and indivisible (40) Burke, Reflections, p. 189. authority and that this does not mean any infringement on liberty since (41) Ibid., p. 225. (42) Gilbert K. Chesterton, The Ethics of Elfland,Orthodoxy (London: Bodley Head, 1908), p. 85. Cf. my critique of James M. Buchanan’s social contract theory for insisting on including coming generations (39) Speech on a Bill for the Repeal of the Marriage Act, 15 June 1781. Repr. in The Works of the Right in decisions about political structures, but leaving out our ancestors, in the chapter on him in this Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII (London: John C. Nimmo, 1837), p. 134. book. 158 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 159

Burke’s Relevance Today

When Burke’s four pillars of a free and stable society are sympathetically interpreted, it becomes obvious that he is not a reactionary. Burke is at pains to show that the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was not about electing a king, but rather about recognising a king on the basis of inheritance when his predecessor had vacated the throne. As a Whig, he supports the 1688 Revolution: the constraints on the monarch according to a social contract—which for him is slowly written by history rather than by individuals marching out of the state of nature—and the right to depose the monarch in extreme circumstances. Indeed, Burke accepts that sometimes rebellions may be necessary, but only in emergencies; and no firm rules can be given as to when they are justified:

Without attempting therefore to define, what never can be defined, the case of a revolution in government, In the United Kingdom, popular Even if cogent arguments may be given to sovereignty does not mean this, I think, may be safely affirmed, that a sore unlimited democracy, abhorred respecting monarchy, an established religion by Burke. It is constrained and pressing evil is to be removed, and that a good, by the rule of law, the King and an aristocracy, partly hereditary, it is great in its amount, and unequivocal in its nature, in Parliament, and political true that these institutions seem much less traditions with a long pedigree. must be probable almost to certainty, before the Illustration by David Low. relevant in modern times than they were in the inestimable price of our own morals, and the well- late eighteenth century. Some would not even being of a number of our fellow-citizens, is paid for a take them seriously and see them as obsolete, revolution.(43) but perhaps harmless relics of the past. But what kind of guidance could Burke give people in the twenty-first century? First and foremost, that the Besides the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Burke supported four separ­ state should not be our only focus of loyalty, reverence and appreciation ate rebellions against authority in his time: the American War of In­ and that there are many more institutions or traditions that we should dependence, the Corsican struggle for self-determination, the rising of support, cultivate and develop: the rule of law, family, property, regions the Poles against Russian oppression, and various revolts against abusive and nation, and the institutions that per­form such necessary functions as British officials in India. Alfred Cobban comments: ‘There are certain defending a country and keeping law and order, mainly the army and the features common to all these. Each was the rising of a whole community, police. Three practical examples, dif­f erent in scope and importance, could under its natural communal leaders in defence of just liberties against be given: child support, national monuments and federalism. violent innovation, and no approval of revolution under any other Assume there is broad agreement that families­ should be supported circumstances should be read into them.’(44) in bringing up their children. Then a Burkean conservative liberal would favour a choice by families between using the money available either

(43) Burke, Appeal, p. 91. for running nurseries and kindergartens (which could be private, even (44) A. B. C. Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Theory of Nationality, The Cambridge Historical Journal, if publicly funded) or as direct payments to the mothers or fathers who Vol. 2, No. 1 (1926), p. 40. 160 Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 161 choose to remain at home in order to rear their young children. They politically united, and all five countries also formed a union for a while, the would receive the same sum as would be used to subsidise other parents Kalmar Union. The Nordic nations share many cultural traits, and today who would send their children to nurseries and kindergartens. they cooperate in the Nordic Council. Indeed, before the European Union Again, a Burkean conservative liberal, believing in a social contract of came into being, they had already abolished passport control on their past, present and coming generations rather than a business deal made borders and established a common labour market. A third example is the between those who are walking around today, would seek to preserve and Tyrol Council whose members are those regions in Switzerland, Austria respect certain potent symbols of our common life and shared values, not and Italy which used to belong to ancient Tyrol. They share a long, if not allowing disrespect for the flag, maintaining historic buildings, operating unbroken history and German as language, although politically they are museums, memorials and national parks, protecting natural wonders separated. such as the American Eagle and other things with special significance for Presumably Burkean conservative liberals would look with sympathy past and coming generations. A Burkean conservative liberal would be a on such spontaneously formed communities, and they would tend to conservationist, looking to the future no less than to the past.(45) think that if there is a problem about smallness, it could be overcome by The third modern case where Burkean considerations might seem federations (such as the United States of America) and alliances (such quite relevant is that of regions and nations, not least in Europe with as NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). What is essential is her rich tapestry of distinct local communities, such as Flanders in that such communities are natural—spontaneously developed—and not Belgium, Scotland in Great Britain and Catalonia in Spain. Whether artificial, imposed from above.(47) Loyalty to them has to be earned, not these three regions and others in a similar situation will continue to be commanded. ‘There ought to be a system of manners in every nation self-governing units within larger states or become independent states which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love themselves is something to be left to history, the choice of generations, our country, our country ought to be lovely.’(48) daily confirmed,(46) but what is important is that they provide foci of loyalty and identification to many or most of their inhabitants. Sometimes such communities are both political and cultural, such as the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were occupied by the Soviet Union for decades, but never really accepted Russian control. Sometimes such communities are however mainly cultural and extend to many independent countries or to parts of them. One example would of course be the British Commonwealth of which the United Kingdom and many former British territories are members, and of which the British Queen is head, although some member states have become republics. Another example is the Nordic countries. For a long time, Sweden and Finland on the one hand and Denmark, Norway and Iceland on the other hand were

(45) Roger Scruton, Green Philosophy: How to think seriously about the planet (London: Atlantic Books, 2013); Hannes H. Gissurarson, Green Capitalism: How to Protect the Environment by Defining Private (47) Cf. Chandran Kukathas, The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (Oxford: Property Rights (Brussels: New Direction, 2017). Oxford University Press, 2003). The author presents the idea of a ‘society as an archipelago of different communities operating in a sea of mutual toleration’. (46) Ernest Renan, What is a Nation? (1882), What is a Nation? and Other Political Writings, tran. by M. F. N. Giglioli (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), pp. 247–263. (48) Burke, Reflections, p. 172. 162 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) 163

Anders Chydenius

(1729–1803)

n modern times, the five Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark, Fin­land, Norway, and Iceland, have been held up as being quite Isucces­sful, all of them being free, stable, and prosperous. But how can their relative success be explained? Is there anything like a ‘Nordic model’ from which other nations may learn? It is noteworthy that the Nordic countries were only united politically, under a king from the Danish royal family, for little more than a century, from 1397 to 1523. Then the Swedes re-established their own kingdom, comprising most of present-day Sweden and Finland. While all Nordic nations converted to Lutheranism in the early sixteenth century, Sweden was for a while a major power in the Baltic region, but lost many of her possessions in a war against Russia, Poland and Denmark which ended in 1721. As a result of the defeat, the Swedish Diet, the Estates of the Realm, which could trace its roots all the way back to a 1435 meeting of the nobility, gain­ed in influence. It consisted of four estates, the nobility, clergy, burghers and peasants. Soon two loosely defined parties emerged in the Diet, the ‘Hats’, hattar, mainly aristocrats, who sought to restore Sweden to her former glory, and the ‘Caps’, mössor, who wanted to pursue peace. In 1765, the clergy in Ostrobothnia (Österbotten in Swedish)—roughly Central Finland—elected from their ranks a Swedish-speaking Finn to the Diet. He was a young parish priest from the small town of Nedervetil, known as a Cap, Anders Chydenius, who was to become a pioneer of Swedish liberalism. He provided ‘an almost In his writings and as a deputy to classically clear and simple exposition of the fundamental tenets of the Estate of the Clergy, Chydenius (1) successfully fought for increased economic liberalism’. economic freedom in the Swedish Realm. Painting by Per Fjällström.

(1) Eli F. Heckscher, Ekonomisk-historiska studier (Stockholm: A. Bonnier, 1936), p. 121. 164 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 165

Chydenius’ Life and Works an essay competition held by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences on the causes of emigration. His contribution proved however too Anders Chydenius was born on 26 February 1729 in the inland com­ radical for the jury, and he did not even get an honourable mention. In mune of Sotkamo in Central Ostrobothnia, not far from the border his essay, Chydenius detailed the abuses, regulations and taxes making with Russia, the son of Hedvig Hornæus and her husband Jacob Chyd­ it difficult to escape poverty in Sweden. ‘A fatherland without freedom enius, who was chaplain of the church there. When Anders was five and livelihood is a big word that signifies little.’(3) The reputation which years old, the family moved to the inland town Kuusamo in Northern Chydenius had by now gained in Ostrobothnia ensured his election to Ostrobothnia where his father Jacob became a vicar and in 1746 the the Estate of the Clergy in the Swedish Diet. In 1765, the Caps were for family moved westwards, to another town in Northern Ostrobothnia, the first time in control of the Diet, and Chydenius emerged as an active Kokkola, close to the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea. In 1745–1753 and influential member of their party. In Stockholm, he wrote several Anders studied philosophy and theology at Turku Academy in Finland political pamphlets, but the most important one was National Gain (Åbo in Swedish) and at Uppsala University in Sweden. ‘Apart from the where he argued that ‘each individual will of his own accord gravitate philosophical sciences, I was very interested in mathematics, especi­ towards the locality and the enterprise where he will most effectively ally geometry, astronomy, gnomonics, mechanics and some algebra,’ increase the national profit, provided that the laws do not prevent him Anders later recalled.(2) Upon finishing university he became chaplain from doing so.’(4) In the Diet, Chydenius successfully campaigned for the in Nedervetil (Alaveteli in Finnish), close to his father’s parish. Mar­ abolition of trade restrictions on the towns in Ostrobothnia. He was also ried, but childless, he was a diligent and resourceful farmer, and a con­ instrumental in abolishing censorship in Sweden. In three memorials on scientious shepherd of his flock. He was a practical man, active in the freedom of the press he expressed his belief that in a free competition of clearing of marshes, experimenting with new breeds of animals and ideas, truth would win. Man was a fallible being, and therefore nobody plants, and adopting new methods of cultivation. He also tried to be could be entrusted with deciding what to publish and what not to useful in other ways, performing minor operations, preparing medicines publish.(5) His arguments were accepted and a Freedom of Information and inoculating his parishioners against smallpox. Soon, he became Act was passed by the Diet, the first of its kind in the world. But finally, interested in issues of trade and politics. At the time, the Kingdom of Sweden followed mercantilist policies and upheld the monopoly of a few chartered cities to engage in foreign trade. Thus, the farmers and (3) Anders Chydenius, Swar På den af Kgl. Wetenskaps Academien förestälta Frågan: Hwad kan wara orsaken, at sådan myckenhet Swenskt folk årligen flytter utur Landet? och genom hwad Författningar burghers of Ostrobothnia were not able to sell their products, mainly det kan bäst förekommas? (Peter Hesselberg, Stockholm, 1765), §18. Repr. Answer to the Question Prescribed by the Royal Academy of Sciences: What May Be the Cause of So Many People Annually tar and timber, directly to customers in other countries. Trade had to Emigrating from This Country? And by What Measures May It Best Be Prevented? Anticipating The go through Stockholm, at the other side of the Gulf of Bothnia. Wealth of Nations, pp. 63–120. In the original, these words are in italics. Chydenius used the same words in other works. Chydenius became convinced that trade monopolies worked against (4) Anders Chydenius, Den Nationnale Winsten (Stockholm: 1765), §5. Repr. The National Gain, the public good. If the Kingdom of Sweden was to prosper, free trade Anticipating The Wealth of Nations, pp. 142–165. was necessary, indeed freedom in general. In 1763 he participated in (5) Memorial om tryckfriheten, 1765. Manuscript in the National Archives of Sweden. Repr. Memorial on the Freedom of Printing, Anticipating The Wealth of Nations, pp. 219–225; Riksens höglofl. ständers stora deputations tredje utskotts betänkande, angående skrif- och tryckfriheten; gifwit wid riksdagen i Stockholm then 18 december 1765. Repr. Report of the Third Committee of the Grand Joint Committee of the Honourable Estates of the Realm on the Freedom of Writing and Printing, (2) Anders Chydenius, Självbiografi (manuscript, 1780). Autobiography submitted to the Society of submitted at the Diet in Stockholm on 18 December 1765, Ibid., pp. 228–234; Riksens höglofl. ständers Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg, tran. by Peter C. Hogg. Repr. Anticipating the Wealth of Nations: The stora deputations tredje utskotts ytterligare betänkande rörande tryckfriheten; gifwit wid riksdagen Selected Works of Anders Chydenius, 1729-1803, ed. by Marin Jonasson and Pertti Hyttinen, introd. by i Stockholm d:n 21. aprilis 1766. Repr. Additional Report of the Third Committee of the Grand Joint Lars Magnusson (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 331–350. Gnomonics is the art of constructing and Committee of the Honourable Estates of the Realm on the Freedom of Printing, Submitted at the Diet using sundials. in Stockholm on 21 April 1766, Ibid., pp. 237–248. 166 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 167

and bickering in the Diet and welcomed some liberal initiatives of the king. In 1778 he was elected for the third time to the Diet. No sooner had he arrived in Stockholm than he published a pamphlet pleading for reforms of existing statutes about servants and hired workers. At the time, they had very limited rights, their masters even being able to administer corporal punishments to them. ‘I speak only in favour of the one small but blessed word Freedom,’ Chydenius wrote.(7) While many, including King Gustav, were sympathetic to his suggestions they were also vigorously resisted and only implemented in the mid-nineteenth century. Chydenius made more headway with another idea: introducing religious freedom in Sweden and welcoming people of other religions to the country, including Catholics and Jews. The Swedes should, he wrote, open their arms ‘to all those unfortunates who already are or may in future be deprived of a sanctuary in their native countries and therefore Chydenius became too outspoken and When Danish kings ruled yearn to move elsewhere in search of some protection from violence and Sweden in the 14th century, (8) independent for his party, the Caps. The they impoverished her with oppression’. Despite fierce opposition from many in his own Estate currency had depreciated under the previous exorbitant taxes. If people did of the Clergy, Chydenius managed to convince the other three Estates of not pay up, their dwellings Hats regime, and the Caps wanted to restore were burned to the ground. his proposal, and also King Gustav who remarked: ‘I am fairly audacious Painting by Carl Gustaf (9) it to its former value. After studying the issue, Hellquist, Valdemar Atterdag as well, but I would never have dared to do what Chydenius did.’ Chydenius became convinced that it would imposes a levy on Visby, 1361. Sweden passed a Toleration Act in 1781. be more prudent to fix it at its present level.(6) The Diet sat until 1779 when Chydenius returned to the Kokkola When he published a pamphlet about this in 1766, the majority in the vicarage and with his usual diligence resumed his pastoral duties. He was Estate of the Clergy turned on him for having offended the Diet and had having misgivings about King Gustav who had abandoned some of his him expelled. liberal policies and who was also engaging in military adventures. In early Chydenius returned in 1766 to Ostrobothnia as somewhat of a 1792 Chydenius was elected for the third time to the Diet which now met celebrity. When the Caps eventually had to accept the depreciation of in Gävle, only for a month. Soon afterwards the king was assassinated by the currency, his analysis of Sweden’s monetary plight seemed to be disgruntled aristocrats. This was a time of conflict and great uncertainty fully vindicated. Chydenius was elected again to the Diet in 1769, but in Swedish society. But even if Chydenius still had the courage of his his election was invalidated because of a formality. In 1770 he became convictions, he was no revolutionary. In a letter from the autumn of 1793 vicar of Kokkala, following in the footsteps of his father. Two years later, he commented on the French Revolution which had started four and King Gustav III seized absolute power in a coup although he did not abolish the Diet. Chydenius had become disgusted with the corruption (7) Anders Chydenius, Tankar Om Husbönders och Tienstehions Naturliga Rätt (Stockholm: 1778), §12. Repr. Thoughts Concerning the Natural Rights of Masters and Servants, Anticipating The Wealth of Nations, pp. 281–312. (8) Anders Chydenius, Memorial, Angående Religions-Frihet (Stockholm: 1779). Repr. Memorial (6) Anders Chydenius, Rikets Hjelp, Genom en Naturlig Finance-System (Stockholm: 1766). Repr. A Regarding Freedom of Religion, Anticipating The Wealth of Nations, pp. 317–322. Remedy for the Country by Means of a Natural System of Finance, Anticipating The Wealth of Nations, pp. 170–212. (9) Chydenius, Autobiography. 168 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 169 a half years earlier, describing how he had ‘observed streams of blood to support themselves by their labour, the more will industriousness be flowing under the banner of enlightenment and freedom and under the stifled.’(13) Chydenius took self-interest for granted: sacred name of the enlightenment a frenzy of high-handedness rapidly spreading around the whole of Europe, which threatened rulers, subjects Each individual pursues his own advantage. That and citizens alike with the most terrible anarchy’.(10) Later, Chydenius inclination is so natural and necessary that every wrote an essay which remained unpublished during his lifetime about society in the world is based on it: otherwise laws, how the sparsely populated Lapland in the very north of Finland could be penalties and rewards would not even exist and the turned into an economic free zone where agriculture, industry and trade whole human race would perish completely within a would be totally unregulated.(11) He also devoted much time to writing short space of time. That work is always best rewarded his sermons and to farming his land, while directing an orchestra which that is of the greatest value and that most sought after gave concerts in the vicarage. Chydenius passed away on 1 February 1803. that is best rewarded.(14)

Natural Rights and Harmony of Interests He pointed out however that the ‘injurious’ self-interest ‘which always tries to conceal itself behind one regulation or another’ could ‘most Chydenius’ case for liberty rested on two pillars, natural rights and effectively be controlled by mutual competition’.(15) harmony of interests. Economic freedom ‘guarantees a Swede the This ‘mutual competition’ was the reason why the pursuit of self- enjoyment of his most precious and greatest natural right, granted interest need not result in destructive chaos, according to Chydenius. to him as a human being by the Almighty, namely, to earn his living by People adjust to one another; if left free, then they move on their own from the sweat of his brow in the best way he can’.(12) In economic affairs a less to a more valuable use of their labour. In such a way, private and Chydenius’ premise was similar to that of John Locke with whose works national profit merge into a single interest, as he put it. There could be a he was familiar: God had given the resources of nature to man for his harmony of interests, or what modern economists would call spontaneous use and enjoyment. He should be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and coordination. Like Adam Smith later, Chydenius realised that it was the subdue it. ‘Should the great Master, who adorns the vale with flowers and division of labour which brought about prosperity: ‘If ten men in one trade clothes the very mountain peak in grass and moss, expose such a great produce commodities to a value of 100 daler a day but in another to no flaw in human beings, His masterpiece, as that they should be unable to more than 80, it is clear that the work of the ten men in the latter causes the populate the globe with as many inhabitants as it can feed?’ But each man nation a loss of 20 daler every day.’(16) The gravitation of labour to its most should be a producer and not a parasite on his fellow human beings: ‘The valuable use was similar to the downward movement of water, an analogy more opportunities that the laws provide for some to live on the toil of which Chydenius frequently used. Superfluous regulations were like others and the more obstacles that are placed in the way of others’ ability ‘dams that concentrate the people in certain places, removing them from one place and moving them to another, without it being possible to say in

(10) Brev till Nils von Rosenstein 21 August 1793. Georg Schauman, Biografiska undersökningar om Anders Chydenius (Helsingfors: 1908), pp. 412–413. In English: Letter to Nils von Rosenstein 21 August 1798, tran. by Peter C. Hogg. http://chydenius.kootutteokset.fi/kirjoitukset/brev-till-von-rosenstein- 1793/?lang=en (13) Ibid., §4. (11) Förslag till Lappmarkernas upphjälpande. Schauman, Biografiska undersökningar, pp. 623–627. (14) Ibid., §5. In English: Proposal for the Improvement of Lapland, tran. by Peter C. Hogg, http://chydenius. kootutteokset.fi/kirjoitukset/brev-till-von-rosenstein-1793/?lang=en (15) Ibid., §31. (12) Chydenius, The National Gain, §31. (16) Ibid., §8. 170 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 171

Swedish expansionism ended with military defeats under King Charles XII. After that, the country could devote herself to the maintenance of peace and the pursuit of prosperity. Painting by Gustaf Cederström, Bringing Home the Body of Charles XII. 172 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 173 which place they will be most useful and increase or reduce the national Economics, especially Carl Menger and Friedrich von Hayek, who viewed profit’. Thus, Chydenius’ conception of the economy was dynamic rather the economy as a process rather than as a given state of affairs. Chydenius than static, expressed in terms of a stream rather than a pond: also was a precursor of James Buchanan’s Public Choice School when he stressed that politicians and public servants might be motivated by self- When the stream is allowed to run evenly, every drop interest like the rest of society. Again, an early statement of a point often of water is in motion. When there are no obstacles in made by Ludwig von Mises, that interventionism may become a vicious the way, every worker competes for his livelihood and circle wherein one regulation requires another, is found in Chydenius: thereby increases the profit to the nation. By means of ‘One constraint always makes another inescapable.’(19) regulations, people are concentrated in certain groups, the opportunities to move into industry are reduced Chydenius’ Intellectual Heirs and a small number of people within each group rise above the majority, whose well-being is presented as Chydenius was not a systematic thinker who would devote his whole evidence of the prosperity of the whole kingdom.(17) life to writing a big treatise of economics like Adam Smith did with his Wealth of Nations, published eleven years after Chydenius’ National Chydenius was much more concerned about inequality as a result of Gain. Certainly, many of their ideas were already circulating in privileges created and protected by government than about inequality eighteenth century society. But it is remarkable how insightful this flowing from different individual achievements. ‘The community at large Lutheran pastor in a sparsely populated periphery of Europe was, may have no right to the property of private individuals when it has been and how clearly and forcefully he expressed his views. Chydenius was legally acquired, but on the other hand it also contributes to the ruin of also a brave and successful champion of freedom in the Kingdom of the country if it does not promptly open those dams that have gathered Sweden, being instrumental during his first term in the Diet in lifting wealth together in a few places and impoverished the rest.’(18) trade restrictions in the Gulf of Bothnia and in abolishing censorship Implicit in Chydenius’ case for liberty was a persuasive critique of and during his second term in introducing religious freedom. He interventionism. Government regulations and other attempts to steer represented the same sturdy Swedish individualism as Lawspeaker the economy away from what would be its natural course were harmful, Torgny in his famous message to the Swedish king in 1018: respect he held, for four main reasons. The politicians making them had no fixed our ancient rights and keep the peace. But ideas are not enough. They principles to follow; they were not in a position to know which branch have to conspire with circumstances. Arguably, and paradoxically, of industry would produce the greatest national profit, or how many some preconditions for the revival of Swedish individualism were should be employed there; they might have a special interest in moving laid by the country’s defeat in the struggle against Russia in the people into some particular branch of industry; and some unexpected early eighteenth century. In 1718, Sweden not only had to bury King events might undermine the whole system and turn useful regulations Charles XII, but also her military ambitions abroad. She ceased to be into harmful ones. It is noteworthy that Chydenius, by emphasising a major European power which meant that she could turn to domestic ignorance and time, anticipated the approach of the Austrian School of reforms, and transform herself from a military to an industrial society. Shortly after a further setback in 1809 when Sweden lost

(17) Ibid., §15. (18) Anders Chydenius, Källan til rikets van-magt (Stockholm: Lars Salvius, 1765). Repr. The Source of Our Country’s Weakness, Anticipating The Wealth of Nations, pp. 124–138. (19) Anders Chydenius, Thoughts Concerning the Natural Right of Masters and Servants, §1. 174 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 175

Finland to Russia, Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér expressed this thought and restrictions on the freedom of the press—which the two previous in a memorable poem: monarchs had reintroduced, after Chydenius’ reform in 1766—were lifted again. A constitution was adopted which in a perhaps typical Led flodens böljor kring som tamda undersåter Swedish way was the result of a compromise between liberals and och inom Sveriges gräns erövra Finland åter!(20) conservatives. Freedom of the press, of religion, and of assembly, as well as the protection of property rights were guaranteed, while the nobility (Lead the river waves around as compliant subjects; and regain Finland retained some of its privileges. Bitterly disappointed when his candidate inside Sweden’s border.) The first line referred to the construction of the to succeed the old king suddenly died, Adlersparre retired from politics. great Göta Canal in Southern Sweden then under construction. Tegnér One of Napoleon’s generals, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, calling himself was telling his compatriots that they should give up trying to conquer Carl Johan in Swedish, was elected king. He allied himself with Russia foreign countries, and instead subdue nature within the borders of and Great Britain against Napoleon and in 1814 as compensation for Sweden, and thus make up for the loss of Finland. Finland received Norway from Napoleon’s defeated ally Denmark. To Danish poet Hans Peter Holst expressed a similar thought after the placate the unruly Norwegians, he had however to accept a much more catastrophic defeat of Denmark in a war over Schleswig against the liberal constitution there than in Sweden, the Eidsvoll Constitution, German Federation in 1864: largely written by Adam Smith’s friend and disciple, Carsten Anker (1747–1824). Indeed, Eidsvoll, the building in which the constitution was For hvert et tab igen erstatning findes; ratified, was owned by Anker. hvad udad tabes, det må indad vindes.(21) King Carl Johan turned out to be quite authoritarian, forcing the liberals into opposition. One of them was the distinguished legal scholar (Every loss brings with it some compensation; what is lost outside, Johan Gabriel Richert (1784–1864). As a young man, he had read the should be regained inside.) Under ambitious kings, both Sweden and Icelandic sagas, finding their account of arbitration by consent rather Denmark had sought to become military powers; and both countries than commands fascinating.(22) He proposed several legal reforms in had to abandon their dreams of glory which turned out to be, for their order to liberalise Swedish society, but his proposals were only slowly inhabitants, a blessing. adopted. Another liberal in opposition to the authoritarian king was the In Sweden, the liberal tradition, facilitated by Sweden’s turn inwards nobleman Lars Johan Hierta (1801–1872). Both a successful entrepreneur and articulated by Chydenius, had great impact in the nineteenth and a political activist, in 1830 he founded Aftonbladet which became a century. Perhaps the army officer Count Georg Adlersparre (1760–1835) bastion of liberalism and the growing middle class, fighting against class was not as original as Chydenius, but he was even more influential. He privileges and economic controls. Hierta had a copy of a famous painting translated parts of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations for a magazine he of the American revolutionaries of 1776 on the wall in his office, and published and was the first Swede to call himself ‘liberal’. After the like Chydenius he strongly believed that no group should be allowed to loss of Finland, Adlersparre led a successful revolt against King Gustav take money out of others’ pockets. His liberalism was eclectic, bringing IV Adolf. The ousted king’s childless old uncle was put on the throne, together utilitarian arguments and ideas of natural rights. ‘Some would argue that this is characteristic of the Swedish mentality,’ Johan Norberg

(20) Esaiah Tegnér, Svea (1812), 2. (21) Poem engraved on a commemorative medal at a Nordic Exposition of Industry and Arts in Copenhagen 1872. (22) Johan Norberg, Den svenska liberalismens historia (Stockholm: Timbro, 1998), p. 81. 176 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 177 remarks.(23) Hierta and other liberals were convinced that the only way to bring Sweden out of poverty was to liberalise the economy and to create new opportunities both for the peasants remaining in the countryside and for the poor masses flocking to the cities. It was quite a sensation, as well as a sign of the times, when Sweden’s most distinguished intellectual, the poet, historian, and composer Erik Gustav Geijer (1783–1847), in 1838 openly declared his wholehearted support for economic liberalism. Because of his patriotic verses and writings on the history of Sweden, until then he had been regarded as more of a conservative. Inspired like Richert by the Icelandic sagas, in his poems Geijer portrayed the independent Swedish farmer, working in the sweat of his brow, holding his own against the wealthy and the learned:

Må ho, som vill, gå kring världens rund: vare herre och dräng den det kan! Stockholm Stock Exchange, Men jag står helst på min egen grund built in 1773–1778 and now the on the important timber and iron industries headquarters of the Swedish och är helst min egen man. Academy: Liberal economic were lifted; tariffs were lowered; a law was reforms in 1848–1866 laid the foundations for Sweden’s passed on joint-stock companies; banks were (May he who so likes, go all over the world, be master or servant. But modern prosperity. Photo established and interest rates deregulated; Arild Vågen. I would rather stand on my own ground and be my own man.) Geijer public education was improved; freedom insisted that the real measure of a system was not found by asking the of the press and of religion were expanded; powerful and the wealthy. What mattered was how the humble and the women won rights to own and inherit property, receive education, and weak fared.(24) make a career. Together, Gripenstedt and De Geer also resolutely pursued After King Carl Johan’s death in 1844, the Swedish government became a foreign policy of non-intervention, in the spirit of Lawspeaker Torgny more open to liberal ideas. An ardent disciple of French writer Frédéric and Anders Chydenius. They for example stopped plans by the king to Bastiat, Baron Johan August Gripenstedt (1813–1874), was in 1848 assist Denmark in the Schleswig War. In 1865, Sweden joined the free- appointed minister without portfolio, and in 1856 finance minister. In the trade treaty between France and the United Kingdom. Two years later, following decade, he used his considerable political skills to implement when the bicameral Parliament convened for the first time, Lars Johan comprehensive liberal reforms, especially after he was in 1858 joined in Hierta, as its oldest member, gave the opening address, celebrating recent the government by another committed liberal, Baron Louis De Geer (1818– liberal reforms and warning his fellow parliamentarians not to devise new 1896). The Diet of the four Estates was replaced by a bicameral Parliament; ways of taking money from the people. the guilds were abolished; entry into business was facilitated; regulations Gripenstedt was fond of quoting Tegnér’s exhortation about regaining Finland inside Sweden’s border. When he stated that Sweden, one of the poorest European countries at the time, could become one of the richest (23) Johan Norberg, How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich, https://www.libertarianism.org/ publications/essays/how-laissez-faire-made-sweden-rich through free trade and modernisation, his opponents tried to ridicule (24) Erik Gustaf Geijer, Freedom in Sweden (Stockholm: Timbro, 2017), p. 238. 178 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 179 him and his ‘flower paintings’.(25) But Gripenstedt was proved right. living standards of the poor. Slowly, economic liberalism ceased to be a Liberalism transformed Sweden. In 1860–1910, real earnings of male new and attractive idea and seemed to become merely a defence of the industrial workers increased by 25 per cent per decade, while life status quo. Great Britain had long been the model for many Swedes, but expectancy increased by 12 years. Indeed, in the fifty years from 1860 now Otto von Bismarck’s new state south of the Baltic Sea, the vigorous to 1910, real earnings increased by 17 per cent, whereas in the next fifty German Empire, was viewed with admiration, not least Bismarck’s years, from 1910 to 1960, they increased by 110 per cent.(26) The living introduction of government-funded welfare benefits and of tariffs standards of ordinary people improved not only as a result of higher to protect domestic industry. But both the German and the Russian earnings, but also because they got running water, sewerage and electric empires collapsed in the First World War, and Chydenius’ homeland, lights installed in their homes, and access to other material goods. During Finland, gained her independence. Since 1809, Finland had been a this period, government remained small: at the turn of the century, Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire, with some autonomy. But central public expenditure was only about 6 per cent of GDP. New the liberal tradition in Finland was not strong. Finns certainly claimed companies were established to produce goods out of the ‘green gold’, as Chydenius as their countryman, but it complicated the development timber was called, and out of iron and other resources. Entrepreneurs of liberal ideas and movements in Finland in the 19th century that the flourished. Lars Magnus Ericsson devised an automatic telephone population was divided between a large Finnish-speaking majority and a exchange and founded L. M. Ericsson. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite small Swedish-speaking minority which had formerly constituted most and established Nitroglycerin AB. Sven Wingquist designed the self- of the ruling elite of the country. Nationalism, both Finnish and Swedish, regulating ball bearing and created SKF. Gustaf Dalén invented a flashing played a much more important role in Finland than liberalism, even if apparatus for lighthouses and set up AGA. Axel Wenner-Gren built up the Young Finns, prominent at the end of the 19th century, were at once Electrolux, introducing vacuum cleaners and refrigerators into Swedish nationalists and liberals. Nonetheless, the Finnish republic established homes. André Oscar Wallenberg founded Stockholms Enskilda Bank and in 1917 was built on the liberal principles of constitutional democracy Albert Bonnier started a publishing company. In Swedish intellectual and the protection of human rights. Its constitution was written by the life, liberals were prominent, for example the pioneer of academic distinguished legal scholar Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg (1865–1952) who economics, Count Gustaf Knut Hamilton, who contrasted spontaneous served as President of Finland in 1919–1925. But the Soviet Union, associations to enforced associations envisaged by socialists. established after the Bolshevik Revolution, cast a long shadow over The new Swedish Parliament did not altogether heed Hierta’s advice Finland until its dissolution in 1991. to seek only the common good instead of serving special interests. In the 1880s tariffs on grain were raised, and protectionists took power, Swedish Liberalism Today although they were unable to reverse most of the liberal reforms. In 1889, the Social Democratic Party was founded with the explicit goal In Sweden, during and after the First World War the old differences of gaining power and using it for the benefit of only a segment, albeit between conservatives and liberals were gradually replaced by differences a large one, of the population, urban workers. The Social Democrats between on the one hand conservative-liberals in a broad sense, split into were however against ‘hunger tariffs’, realizing that they reduced the many political parties, and on the other hand socialists, organised in one large party, the Social Democrats, with a small communist party to their left. Two renowned economists became outspoken critics of advancing (25) Norberg, Den svenska liberalismens historia, p. 147. socialism, Gustav Cassel (1866–1945) and Eli Heckscher (1879–1952). (26) Norberg, How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich. As young men, both had been rather sceptical about economic freedom, 180 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 181 but by their studies and reflections they had become convinced that socialism would not have the beneficial consequences intended or at least advertised. Cassel, a mathematician by training, was Economics Professor at Stockholm University. He was a world-famous monetary economist who developed the idea of purchasing power parity and was internationally influential in the 1920s. He was also an excellent writer who contributed a stream, almost a torrent, of articles, in lucid, powerful prose, to Swedish newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s on the virtues of competition and the free market.(27) Heckscher was Economics Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics. As a scholar, he contributed to the theory of international trade and wrote a comprehensive history of mercantilism as well as a monumental economic history of Sweden.(28) Chydenius teaches that He mainly argued for economic freedom on consequentialist grounds. economic freedom can social democrats, the extensive economic He held that income distribution ought to be as equal as it could be establish harmony between planning they craved would, if consistently producers and consumers. without harming the process of wealth creation,(29) in a clear anticipation He was featured on a Finnish carried out, lead to despotism. In Sweden, as of John Rawls’ theory of justice.(30) Heckscher was like Cassel adamantly banknote. in many other countries, a lively debate took opposed to protectionism: ‘Either an economic sector is profitable, and place about Hayek’s dire warnings. One of then it does not need tariff protection; or it is not profitable, and then Sweden’s best-known social democrats, Herbert Tingsten, Professor of it does not deserve tariff protection.’(31) But to their chagrin, Cassel and Politics at Stockholm University, even changed his mind after reading Heckscher saw the Social Democrats assume power in 1932, although Hayek’s book. In June 1945 Tingsten said in a famous radio debate: ‘The neither of them probably imagined that they would keep it for 44 years. problem is whether one can, in a state which directs, leads, plans, and Immediately after the war, the Social Democrats adopted a radical owns most things, preserve freedom in some designated sectors which programme calling for comprehensive economic planning. Swedish are then highly taxed. Will such small oases not soon be destroyed by businessmen looked with apprehension on this development and the desert storm which central planning really is?’(32) Soon afterwards, welcomed the translation of Friedrich von Hayek’s 1944 book, Road to Tingsten left his professorship and became editor of one of Sweden’s Serfdom, where he argued that national socialism and communism were largest newspapers where he used his eloquence and wide learning to of the same ilk and that despite the undoubtedly good intentions of many promote liberal principles, but displayed more interest in politics than economics. When Hayek founded an international academy of liberal thinkers, the Mont Pelerin Society, in 1947, Heckscher and Tingsten (27) Gustav Cassel, Socialism eller Framåtskridande (Stockholm: Norstedt & Söner, 1928). Parts of this became members. However, Tingsten only attended the first meeting collection of articles were translated into both Danish and Icelandic. In Iceland, Cassel had quite an impact on members of the Independence Party, Iceland’s conservative-liberal party, founded in 1929, of the society. He did not share the fierce opposition of some members, especially on its first Leader, Jon Thorlaksson. Ludwig von Mises in particular, to redistribution. (28) Eli F. Heckscher, Mercantilism, Vols. I–II (London: Allen & Unwin, 1935); An Economic History of Sweden (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1954). The lively debate in Sweden on central planning at the end of the war (29) Norberg, Den svenska liberalismens historia, p. 229. (30) John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971). (31) Johan Norberg, Den svenska liberalismens historia, p. 232. (32) Ibid., p. 267. 182 Anders Chydenius (1729–1803) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 183 was an intellectual victory for the anti-socialists. In order to keep power, unions by means of special wage earner funds. Swedish society was to the Social Democrats retreated somewhat from their most radical become as socialised as possible: capitalism without capitalists. But as positions. The next two decades saw a new consensus forming whereby sometimes happens, the time of a movement’s greatest triumph is also the state refrained from nationalisation and comprehensive economic the time when it may have over-extended itself. The ‘Swedish model’, planning, but instead levied high taxes on the more well-off, while not touted by left-wing intellectuals around the world, was not to last. impairing the competitiveness of the export industries. This was the Indeed, a distinction can be made between three Swedish models. The time of ‘Harpsund Democracy’, named after a country manor that a Chydenius model, as it could be called, was developed in the mid-19th rich industrialist left the Swedish state in 1952 as the prime minister’s century, when the principles of free trade and unfettered competition summer house. Regular consultations were held there between leaders were generally accepted and implemented in Sweden. The years of the Social Democrats, the business community, and the trade between 1970 and 1990 were the heyday of the social democratic welfare unions. It sometimes felt, critics said, like Sweden was not ruled by her model, although it had started its development much earlier and was to people, but by an unholy alliance of Big Government, Big Business, and last for a few more years. The third model emerged in the 1990s after the Big Labour. The Social Democrats cautiously started extending welfare failure of the social democratic model: this was the liberal welfare model, benefits to the middle class both to enlarge their own electoral basis based on a new consensus in Sweden of reducing taxes and encouraging and to strengthen support for the welfare state, just like Bismarck had entrepreneurship, while securing the access of all citizens to welfare introduced welfare benefits in Germany to try and capture the working- services irrespective of their means. class vote. In the 1960s and 1970s, the welfare state seemed to be firmly The reason why the second Swedish model was abandoned was entrenched in Sweden, the old liberals quietly falling silent and leaving simple. It was unsustainable. The economy stagnated, entrepreneurs the scene without younger thinkers or activists replacing them. left the country, the only new jobs created were in the public sector, A rare exception was economist Sven Rydenfelt (1911–2005). In his and the traditional Swedish virtues of hard work, self-reliance and books Rydenfelt applied classical price theory to economic problems, thriftiness were visibly eroded. More and more people came to see that noting for example that rent control reduced supply of housing relative the success of Sweden and the other Nordic countries was not because to demand and that the welfare state was like a knight in armour: of social democracy, but despite it. The three main factors explaining the heavier the protection, the less the mobility.(33) Polemical and their relative success in modern times were the rule of law, free trade uncompromising, Rydenfelt was not a prophet in his own country. and social cohesion.(34) These three factors all rely on the conservative- Slowly but surely, the Social Democrats continued raising taxes and liberal tradition of Chydenius and his disciples, tracing its roots all the increasing welfare benefits, intensifying the corporatism inherent in way back to the old Nordic notion of folk law—a tradition which has now ‘Harpsund Democracy’, except that the business community was no been revived in Sweden and the other Nordic countries. longer welcome at the table. By 1970, in the Social Democratic Party ideologues had replaced pragmatists, and the emphasis had shifted from lifting up the poor to bringing down the rich. Ambitious plans were designed to transfer private enterprises gradually into the hands of trade

(33) There are three chapters on Eli Heckscher and two chapters on Sven Rydenfelt in Mats Lundahl, Seven Figures in the History of Swedish Economic Thought (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Rydenfelt’s critique of socialist agricultural policies was published in an English translation, A Pattern (34) Nima Sanandaji, Scandinavian Unexceptionalism (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2015); for Failure: Socialist Economies in Crisis (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984). Hannes H. Gissurarson, The Nordic Models (Brussels: New Direction, 2016). 185

Benjamin Constant

(1767–1830)

n 1819, thirty years had passed since the French Revolution begun, throwing France into turmoil and having a strong impact in many Iother European countries and in the Americas. From his vantage point across the Channel, Edmund Burke had already in 1790 predicted that the Revolution would end in terror, and so it did in 1793–1794, after which General Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, eventually making himself Emperor and ruling France for 16 eventful years, until the Bourbon monarchy was restored under Lewis XVIII in 1815, with the help of foreign armies. Of course, conservative and liberal French thinkers were preoccupied with the Revolution: What went wrong? Why did it end in terror and then in a military dictatorship? The renowned French writer and politician Benjamin Constant used the occasion to give a speech, at the Athenée Royal in Paris on 13 February 1819, in which he tried to answer those questions. What went wrong, he argued, was that the Jacobins of the Revolution, under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, had confused ancient and modern liberty, self-government of small cities on the one hand and protected domains of individuals on the other hand. The notion of ancient liberty could not be easily applied to large modern societies based on commerce rather than warfare. In his speech and several other works Constant presented his conservative liberalism, combining support for private property rights and free trade with respect for traditions such as those embodied in established religion and local communities. The distinguished historian of ideas Sir Isaiah Berlin called Constant ‘the most eloquent of all defenders of freedom and privacy’ and believed him to be Constant criticises the Jacobins for failing to distinguish between two the originator of the famous distinction between negative and positive kinds of liberty, ancient and modern. liberty, articulated by Berlin himself.(1) Painting by Hercule de Roches.

(1) Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 186 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 187

Constant’s Life and Works

Benjamin Constant lived a much more colourful life than most other political thinkers, not only because he was born and raised in tempestuous times, but also because he was by nature an adventurer, gambler and womaniser who described several of his intimate affairs in his journals and letters and in romantic novels. Born on 25 October 1767 in Lausanne, he was descended from French Huguenots who had fled religious persecution in the sixteenth century. His father, Juste Constant de Rebecque, was a professional Swiss soldier in Dutch service, but his mother, Henriette de Chandieu, died when he was still in the cradle. A child prodigy, Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, as he was christened, was educated by private tutors and almost wore out his eyes by voracious reading. As a young man, at the initiative of his father, he was briefly appointed to the court of the Duchess of Brunswick, but a love affair forced him to leave Germany in 1783. For the next two years, Constant studied at the University of Edinburgh where he came under the influence of David Hume and Adam Smith. It was the most pleasant time of his life, he later recalled.(2) From 1788 until 1794, he served at the court of the Duke of Brunswick, marrying in 1789 a lady of the court, only to divorce her five years later. In 1794, Constant met the rich and famous writer Germaine de Staël who found him ‘not very good looking, but exceptionally intelligent’.(3) They became lovers, although she was already married to the Swedish Ambassador in Paris. Constant and de Staël were to have a daughter together, Albertine. They went to Paris in 1795 after the Terror had ended and the Directorate had been put in place, and de Staël was soon to preside over a salon where guests engaged in animated discussions with the host and her companion, both brilliant conversationalists. The couple supported the Directorate, and in 1798 Constant became French citizen. A year later he was appointed to the Tribunate, an advisory Constant’s long-time companion Germaine de Staël, a liberal author in her own right, and their daughter 1969), p. 126. Albertine, later Duchess of Broglie. Painting by Marguerite Gérard. (2) Rene Winegarten, Germaine de Staël and Benjamin Constant: A Dual Biography (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 47. (3) Ibid., p. 13. 188 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 189 assembly which first convened in the beginning of 1800. The couple also Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor Napoleon in the spring of found time occasionally to stay in de Staël’s country house Coppet in 1804, but ten years later, after several wars, he was defeated by the Allied Switzerland, overlooking Lake Geneva, where they received many of the Powers, mainly the United Kingdom and Russia,(8) but also Sweden, leading intellectuals of Europe. Prussia and Austria. Constant returned to Paris and offered his services General Bonaparte overthrew the Directorate in late 1799 and to King Lewis XVIII. By now, Constant had broken up with de Staël established the Consulate in which he was First Consul. Slowly, but and entered into a relationship with her best friend, Juliette Récamier, surely, he began reducing freedom of expression. In the Tribunate reputed to be the most beautiful woman in Europe. He was also since on 5 January 1800, Constant denounced the regime of ‘servitude and 1809 secretly married to a German lady, Charlotte von Hardenberg. In silence’ which Bonaparte was implementing. The First Consul was order to pay his gambling debts he had been forced to sell his beloved mightily offended, and none of the many expected guests at de Staël’s country house near Paris, but a stroke of luck at the roulette table salon turned up that day.(4) The couple suddenly became outsiders enabled him in 1814 to buy a house in Paris.(9) His daughter Albertine in Paris. Nevertheless, Constant kept fighting against Bonaparte’s de Staël married Duke Victor de Broglie and was the great-grandmother encroaching authoritarianism, and in February 1802 he was expelled of the physicist Duke Louis de Broglie who received the Nobel Prize in from the Tribunate. His companion de Staël was also a fierce critic of Physics in 1929. Bonaparte who in 1803 banished her from Paris. Constant followed Emperor Napoleon, after his defeat, had abdicated and gone into her into exile in Germany, where they both became imbued with exile, but in the spring of 1815, he suddenly returned to France, seizing German romanticism.(5) During his voluntary exile, occasionally power again. He now presented himself as a committed liberal and interrupted by trips to Paris, Constant worked on religious writings, invited his old adversary Constant to advise him on a new constitution, but also on a general defence of individual liberty, Principles of Politics, which Constant did. However, in the summer, the Allied Powers of which a shortened version was published in 1815,(6) and a critique again defeated Napoleon and King Lewis XVIII returned to France. of authoritarianism, The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation and Their Somewhat discredited by his brief association with Napoleon, Constant Relation to European Civilization, published in 1814.(7) Against went to England, but soon returned to France where he was elected three French political practices, Colbertism, the high taxes and tight to the Chamber of Deputies and became the eloquent leader of the regulations of King Lewis XIV’s notorious Finance Minister Colbert, liberal faction. In 1816 Constant published a romantic novel, Adolphe, Jacobinism, the democratic despotism of the French revolutionaries, partly inspired by his numerous love affairs, and in 1819 he gave his and Bonapartism, the military dictatorship of General Bonaparte, celebrated speech about two kinds of liberty, ancient and modern.(10) Constant set out his own version of conservative liberalism, inspired His mature reflections on politics are also presented in theCommentary by Hume and Smith. on Filangieri’s Work, published in two parts in 1822 and 1824.(11)

(8) Constant’s companion, de Staël, was so well-known as Napoleon’s opponent that one of her (4) Ibid., p. 128. contemporaries, Victorine de Chastenay, observed: ‘Bonaparte had so persecuted her that people said in Europe one had to count three Great Powers: England, Russia, and Mme de Staël.’ Mémoires de (5) Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics: Applicable to All Governments (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Madame de Chastenay, 1771-1815, ed. by Alphonse Roserot, Vol. II (Paris: Plon, Nourrit & Cie, 1897), p. Fund, 2003), Introduction, p. xviii. This and some other works by Constant are accessible at the 445. website of Liberty Fund. (9) Winegarten, Dual Biography, pp. 189 and 254. (6) Benjamin Constant, Principes de politique, applicables a tous les gouvernements représentatifs et particulièrement a la constitution actuelle de la France (Paris: Alexis Eymery, 1819). (10) Benjamin Constant, De la liberté des anciens comparée à celle des modernes, discours prononcé à l’Athénée royal de Paris (1819). (7) Benjamin Constant, De l’esprit de conquête et de l’usurpation dans leurs rapports avec la civilisation européenne (Hanover: Hahn, 1814). (11) Benjamin Constant, Commentaire sur l’ouvrage de Filangieri, Vols. I–II (Paris: P. Dufart, 1822 and 1824). 190 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 191

Constant was a forceful critic of the reactionary Count of Artois who for their motives or undertakings. It is everyone’s in 1824 succeeded his brother Lewis XVIII as King Charles X. In the right to associate with other individuals, either to preface to a collection of essays published in 1829, Constant wrote: discuss their interests, or to profess the religion which they and their associates prefer, or even simply to For forty years I have defended the same principle, occupy their days or hours in a way which is most liberty in everything, in religion, in philosophy, in compatible with their inclinations or whims. Finally literature, in industry, in politics: and by liberty I mean it is everyone’s right to exercise some influence on the the triumph of individuality both over authority that administration of the government, either by electing would seek to govern by despotism and over the masses all or particular officials, or through representations, who demand the right to enslave the minority to the petitions, demands to which the authorities are more majority. Despotism has no right. The majority has or less compelled to pay heed.(13) that of constraining the minority to respect order.(12) He contrasted this modern liberty with that of the ancients which Constant welcomed the 1830 revolution when the king was deposed and replaced by a relative, Louis-Philippe de Orléans. The new king paid consisted in exercising collectively, but directly, several Constant’s gambling debts and appointed him to the Council of State as parts of the complete sovereignty; in deliberating, President. The health of the venerated liberal statesman was however in the public square, over war and peace; in forming failing, and he passed away on 8 December 1830. alliances with foreign governments; in voting laws, in pronouncing judgments; in examining the accounts, Ancient and Modern Liberty the acts, the stewardship of the magistrates; in calling them to appear in front of the assembled people, in In his 1819 speech on two kinds of liberty, Constant said that their accusing, condemning or absolving them.(14) confusion was responsible for many an evil during the French Revolution. But what did modern man understand by the word ‘liberty’? Constant Indeed, Constant said, among the ancients the individual might be replied that sovereign in public affairs and a slave in his private relations. Constant traced the difference between ancient and modern liberty it is the right to be subjected only to the laws, and to several sources. Ancient republics had tiny populations and were to be neither arrested, detained, put to death or restricted to narrow territories; they were constantly engaged in wars maltreated in any way by the arbitrary will of one or against their neighbours; and since their citizens could rely on slaves more individuals. It is the right of everyone to express performing many necessary functions, they had leisure to attend public their opinion, choose a profession and practice it, to meetings. By contrast, modern states were much larger than Sparta or dispose of property, and even to abuse it; to come and Rome, and they were connected by commerce. ‘Commerce is simply a go without permission, and without having to account

(13) Benjamin Constant, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns, Political Writings, ed. by Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 310–311. (12) Benjamin Constant, Mélanges de littérature et de politique (Paris: Pichon & Didier, 1829). Quoted from Winegarten, Dual Biography, p. 291. (14) Ibid., p. 311. 192 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 193

Constant’s argument that at his trial Socrates did not defend himself by stating that he should not have to believe in the gods of the city and that corruption was in the eye of the beholder. Quite the contrary: He argued that the accusations were untrue—that he did indeed believe in the gods of the city and that he had not corrupted youth. In other words, Socrates accepted the premise that those who did not believe in the gods of the city and who corrupted youth should be prosecuted and punished. Constant observed that in large, modern states each individual had much less say than in the small city states of antiquity, simply because he formed a relatively much smaller part of the now much larger whole. In addition, being preoccupied with satisfying his material needs, he had much less opportunity to participate in political decisions. Hence, a need arose for a representative system. ‘The representative system is nothing but an organization by means of which a nation charges a few individuals to do what she cannot or does not wish to do herself.’(16) It was in other words impossible to try and introduce direct democracy in a large and diverse commercial society. Rousseau had written with disdain about English democracy where a citizen was only free tribute paid to the strength of the possessor The French Revolution was on the one day every fifth year when he was voting.(17) Constant suggested, extremely violent. Princess by the aspirant to possession. It is an attempt de Lamballe, loyal friend of however, that Rousseau was fatally wrong in his attempt to transpose to the to conquer, by mutual agreement, what Queen Marie Antoinette, was modern age the idea of a collective unlimited sovereignty which belonged to brutally murdered by the one can no longer hope to obtain through Paris mob on 3 September other centuries. Rousseau had argued that by surrendering all his liberties (15) 1792. Her head was placed violence.’ Thus, commerce had replaced on a pike and paraded to the people the individual was only surrendering it to himself since he was war. Slavery had also been abolished, so that through the streets of Paris. a member of the community, but Constant pointed out that he always had Painting by Leon M. Faivre. free men had to provide for all the needs of to delegate, and when this happened a group of people acquired unlimited society. They were fully occupied with their power which then, in turn, was bound to be abused. Thus Rousseau had, speculations, enterprises and pleasures and had developed a sense of perhaps unintentionally, ‘furnished deadly pretexts for more than one kind individuality which had not existed in antiquity. Constant found ancient of tyranny’.(18) Athens to be the exception that proved the rule. Even if commerce and Constant claimed that two ancient practices had no place in modern individuality were more advanced there than in other Greek city-states, society, Athenian ostracism and Roman censorship. Different individuals the Athenians relied on slaves to do most of the work, and they did not had to be tolerated, not exiled; and public opinion had to be formed tolerate dissent: Socrates was executed for not believing in the gods freely. In schools, government should not try to shape new generations of the city and for corrupting youth, and other thinkers were expelled at the whim of the voting population. It should be added in support of (16) Ibid., p. 325. (17) Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, The Social Contract and Discourses, tran. by G. D. H. Cole (London: J. M. Dent, 1913), p. 83. (15) Ibid., p. 313. (18) Constant, Liberty, p. 318. 194 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 195 to its pleasure. It should instead confine itself to providing people with an individual, but once he came to realise that he belonged to, say, a nation the general means of instruction, ‘as travellers accept from them the or a class, he became free. Then he was liberated from his delusions about main roads without being told by them which route to take’.(19) Religion himself, or from what Marxists called ‘false consciousness’. Yet another should not be imposed, either, from above. Constant emphasised that move could then be made: If a man was deluding himself, then others he was not trying to diminish the value of political liberty. There was might liberate him by preventing him to act on his delusions, just as they a danger that modern man, having delegated power to the authorities, might prevent someone from crossing an unstable bridge. They might would neglect politics. He might become absorbed in the enjoyment coerce him in the name of some goal which he would, if more enlightened, of his private independence, with the authorities only too anxious himself pursue. Thus, they might make him to realise his higher or inner to encourage him to do so. ‘Political liberty, by submitting to all the self, or in Rousseau’s memorable words, force him to be free.(21) This, in citizens, without exception, the care and assessment of their most sacred short, was the argument of modern totalitarians and the process in which interests, enlarges their spirit, ennobles their thoughts, and establishes Berlin’s positive liberty became Constant’s liberty of the Ancients. among them a kind of intellectual equality which forms the glory and Berlin argued that the contrast between negative and positive liberty power of a people.’(20) The two kinds of liberty had to be combined, the was that between two profoundly divergent and irreconcilable attitudes pursuit of private interests and the exercise of political rights. to the ends of life. Liberals like Constant wanted to curb authority as In his lecture about two kinds of liberty, Constant presented a such, authoritarians and totalitarians wanted it placed in their own plausible explanation of the failure of the French Revolution. His lecture hands. In 1991, Berlin returned to Constant when he was responding to a also became an inspiration to those twentieth century thinkers who critic who had taken him to task for calling Edmund Burke a reactionary. tried to make sense out of totalitarianism. One of them, Sir Isaiah Berlin, He admitted that he did not know much about Burke, but that he thought in his inaugural lecture as Professor of Political Theory at Oxford in 1958 it was perhaps Constant who had offered the most penetrating analysis made a distinction between negative and positive liberty. The former of the French Revolution. ‘That cold, perceptive, independent, civilised concept was basically the absence of coercion. An individual was unfree if Swiss wrote better about the destruction of individual liberty and the he was shackled, or kept in a prison cell. This was the plain, common-sense horrors of both the Terror and, to some degree, of Bonapartist rule, interpretation of the concept. Positive liberty on the other hand was self- than anybody,’ Berlin wrote. ‘I cannot deny that his famous essay on the mastery. An individual was free if he was himself in control of his life, not difference between the ancient and modern worlds did have a pretty in thrall to an obsession, addiction or delusion. In this sense, an individual strong influence on me.’(22) was unfree if he let anger overtake him, or if he gave in to the temptation to eat and drink too much. This was the metaphysical interpretation of the Safeguards of Liberty concept. Berlin pointed out that positive liberty seemed to presuppose a division of the human self into a higher and a lower self, where liberty It is often said that nineteenth century liberalism was materialistic, consisted in the higher self overruling the lower one. But then it was easy utilitarian, and uninspiring. While this may be true partly of the English to make a move to the identification with some collective as an expression utilitarians and perhaps also of the free traders from Manchester, of the higher self. A man might be deluded into thinking that he was just

(21) Rousseau, Social Contract, p. 18.

(19) Ibid., p. 323. (22) Lionel Gossman, Benjamin Constant on Liberty and Love, Isaiah Berlin’s Counter- Enlightenment, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 93, Pt. 6, ed. by Joseph Mali (20) Ibid., p. 327. and Robert Wokler (Philadelphia PA: American Philosophical Society, 2003), p. 133. 196 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 197

Constant certainly does not fit this description. He explicitly rejected In tolerating speculative laws—that is, taking utilitarianism. According to him, the principle of utility awakened in legislation beyond the sphere of necessity—you thus the human heart the hope of advantage rather than the feeling of duty. subject the human race to the inevitable mistakes It was also indeterminate and could be used to justify all prohibitions.(23) of men vulnerable to error, not only through the Happiness was not the only aim of mankind: weakness inherent to everyone, but through the additional effect of their special position.(26) If it were so, our course would be narrow indeed, and our destination far from elevated. There is If human weakness was an argument against individual freedom, then it not one single one of us who, if he wished to abase was an even better one against despotism. Against Rousseau, Constant himself, restrain his moral faculties, lower his held that the omnipotent nation was as dangerous as a tyrant, indeed desires, abjure activity, glory, deep and generous more dangerous, pointing out ‘that in handing yourself over to everyone emotions, could not demean himself and be happy. else, it is certainly not true that you are giving yourself to no one. On the No, Sirs, I bear witness to the better part of our contrary, it is to surrender yourself to those who act in the name of all’.(27) nature, that noble disquiet which pursues and The failure of the French Revolution was always on Constant’s mind. torments us, that desire to broaden our knowledge Early on, the revolutionaries had proclaimed a ‘Declaration of Human and develop our faculties. It is not to happiness Rights’, but that document had been useless to stop the Terror. ‘In a few alone, it is to self-development that our destiny years we have tried some five or six constitutions and found ourselves calls us; and political liberty is the most powerful, the worse for it. No argument can prevail against such an experience.’(28) the most effective means of self-development that The point, Constant said, was that a simple declaration did not suffice. heaven has given us.(24) What was required were positive safeguards. These safeguards were of two kinds, internal and external: they Instead, Constant’s ideal was human flourishing, man’s self-development, were on the one hand about creating checks and balances by separating such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and, to some extent, John Stuart Mill government powers and on the other hand about constraining these had pursued, the ‘highest and most harmonious development of his powers by counteracting forces. Constant proposed five bodies or powers to a complete and consistent whole’.(25) institutions of authority: the monarch and the government would share Man could not develop his faculties and flourish under despotism, between them executive power; a hereditary and an elected chamber however enlightened, Constant believed. He had a much more critical would share between them legislative power; and the judiciary would be attitude toward government than most political thinkers in France in independent of the two other branches of government. The monarch, the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Men in power were just as Constant hoped, would exert a moderating influence on the government fallible as others, and in the course of imposing their will on others they of the day, as would a hereditary chamber of parliament on the elected became worse: one. These two institutions would be stabilising factors. The government

(23) Constant, Principles, pp. 40 and 48. (26) Constant, Filangieri, p. 41. (24) Constant, Liberty, p. 327. (27) Constant, Principles, p. 16. (25) Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Sphere and Duties of Government, tran. by Joseph Coulthard (London: John Chapman, 1854), p. 11. (28) Ibid., p. 3. 198 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 199 and the elected chamber would be sanctioned by the people, and the it. Thus everything falls silent, subsides, degenerates monarch and the hereditary chamber by history. For Constant, democracy and is degraded in a nation which no longer has the was not about discovering or constructing the general will in Rousseau’s right to make public its thoughts, and sooner or sense, an impossible task anyway. It was about holding those in power later, such a realm presents the spectacle of those responsible to those whom they are supposed to represent. Those who plains of Egypt, where we see an immense pyramid look upon monarchy and a hereditary chamber of parliament as quaint pressing down on the arid dust, reigning over the silent ideas, irrelevant in the modern age, should note that to some extent wastes.(30) Constant’s goal of creating checks and balances by them could be achieved by an elected head of state, acting independently of government, and by Constant pointed out that it was not freedom of press which overthrew a bicameral system where the upper house or senate would represent the French monarchy; it was financial disorder. If there had been freedom regions or states, whereas the lower house would represent people more of the press under Lewis XIV and Lewis XV, the ‘insane wars of the first directly. In Restoration France, from 1814 to 1848, the French parliament and the costly corruption of the second would not have drained the was divided into a Chamber of Peers and a Chamber of Representatives, State dry’.(31) Where there was no freedom of the press, people believed later called Chamber of Deputies. The Chamber of Peers was however nothing coming from government and everything said against it. When abolished after the 1848 Revolution and a single chamber established, the talented individuals were hindered in expressing their thoughts, some National Assembly. The present division of the United States Congress would become fierce opponents of government, while others would into the Senate and the House of Representatives is an example of how compensate for their lack of freedom by withdrawing into a hedonistic the legislative power can be shared by two bodies. Constant also suggested and irresponsible life. yet another means of decentralisation, an increased role for local Another important constraint on government and thus a safeguard communities. ‘The capital would cease to be a unique centre, destructive of individual liberty was private property. ‘Without property the of any other centres. It would become a link between diverse centres.’(29) human race would be in stasis, in the most brutish and savage state of Devolution would keep alive local interests, customs and memories which its existence,’ Constant wrote. ‘The abolition of property would destroy would enable individuals to resist attempts by the state to extend its the division of labour, the basis of the perfecting of all the arts and powers and impose uniformity on the citizens. sciences.’(32) He emphasised its civilising impact: Constant’s contribution to liberal political theory lay not least in the external constraints on government that he envisaged. An important When wealth is the gradual product of assiduous one was freedom of the press, enabling the spontaneous formation of work and a busy life or when it is transmitted from public opinion and nourishing a strong civic spirit: generation to generation by peaceful possession, far from corrupting those who acquire it or enjoy its use, A nation’s lethargy, where there is no public opinion, it offers them new means of leisure and enlightenment communicates itself to its government, whatever the and consequently new motives for morality.(33) latter does. Having been unable to keep the nation

awake, the government finishes by falling asleep with (30) Ibid., p. 123. (31) Ibid., p. 108. (32) Ibid., p. 168. (29) Ibid., p. 325. (33) Ibid., p. 366. 200 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 201

encounter any hindrances.’(37) Property was no less a safeguard of political liberty than of individual liberty, Constant thought. People needed some leisure for developing an informal outlook and soundness of judgement, and they could only find this leisure if they had property. To be good citizens people had to own some property. Therefore the vote, Constant said, should be confined to property owners. It was also desirable that legislators would be men of means because they could afford to devote themselves to their set tasks. Constant agreed with David Hume however that the institution of property was a social convention rather than a natural right:

Society found that the best way to get its members to enjoy goods common to all or disputed by all before its institution, was to concede some of them to each person or to maintain each person in that part of Constant used many of the same arguments In the country house of them he happened to possess, guaranteeing to him Germaine de Staël, Coppet against economic interventionism as Adam on Lake Geneva, Constant enjoyment of this, plus such changes as this enjoyment Smith: ‘Every time governments pretend met with some of the might undergo either by the countless changes of most brilliant intellectuals to do our own business, they do it more of Europe. He and de chance or by inequality in the degrees of effort.(38) Staël were both noted incompetently and expensively than we conversationalists. would.’(34) Again, ‘it suffices to leave each It goes almost without saying that Constant was opposed to entails, individual perfectly free in the deployment of primogeniture and other restrictions on the transfer of property by his capital and his labor. He will discern better than any government the consent. best use he can make of them.’(35) Constant explicitly used the French word A third important constraint on government was religion which ‘laissez-faire’: ‘Thus whenever there is no absolute necessity, whenever Constant viewed with much more sympathy than most eighteenth legislation does not have to intervene so that society will not be overthrown, century French thinkers. According to him, religion not only sought to whenever finally it is only a question of a hypothetical good, the law must satisfy man’s deeply rooted need for meaning and purpose in life. It also abstain, allow things to happen, and be silent.’(36) Constant also believed, acted to instil humility in him and aided the development of morality. with Adam Smith, in the spontaneous coordination of a free economy: Noble passions and religious feelings ‘make man break out of the narrow ‘Wealth is distributed and divided by itself in perfect equilibrium, when circle of his interests, they give the soul that flexibility, that delicacy, that the division of property is not limited and the exercise of industry does not exaltation smothered by habituation to life in the community and the

(34) Constant, Liberty, p. 315. (35) Constant, Principles, p. 235. (37) Ibid., p. 27. (36) Constant, Filangieri, p. 42. (38) Constant, Principles, p. 167. 202 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 203 calculations it necessitates’.(39) Everything fine, intimate and profound machine.’(43) Therefore he saw a place for political liberty, or democracy, was religious, Constant said. It was important that the state would not be besides individual liberty. A strong civic spirit was both a product of the only institution with a claim to the loyalty of the citizens. Individuals liberty and its precondition. Indeed, the question with which Constant had to be able to identify with churches and local communities. But was preoccupied was, as Benedetto Croce later pointed out, whether this required religious freedom. ‘In the hands of government, religion liberal culture could survive without a soul.(44) has been transformed into a menacing institution.’(40) Constant was opposed both to the Jacobins who sought to destroy religion and to Constant in South Africa the reactionaries of the Restoration Era who wanted to impose one faith on the nation. He was a traditionalist, but the touchstone for In his critique of Rousseau and other social reformers, Constant him, as American historian Ralph Raico has stated, was whether or not acknowledged that they had legitimate grievances. ‘But their wrath has illegitimate force was used to uphold traditions.(41) been directed against the wielders of power and not the power itself. Thus, Constant’s analysis of the French Revolution and of the Instead of destroying it, they have dreamed only of relocating it.’(45) possible safeguards of liberty was not all that different from that of Perhaps the best example of legitimate grievances and misguided Burke, despite Berlin’s pronouncement that Constant was a liberal and attempts at relocating power instead of reducing it would be South Africa Burke a reactionary. Both Constant and Burke emphasised the useful, in the twentieth century. Her problems have to be put into an historical indeed indispensable, function of the many intermediary institutions context. The first Dutch settlers arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in and traditions to be found between government and the individuals, 1652, and over the course of the next one hundred and fifty years a large such as family, church and local community, as well as the monarchy and Dutch colony was formed, with people of Dutch origin co-existing and the aristocracies of birth and wealth. ‘To be attached to the subdivision, sometimes mixing with Huguenot refugees from France, Black natives to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the and immigrants from Dutch Indonesia. In 1815, after the Napoleonic germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by Wars in Europe, the colony was transferred to the United Kingdom which we proceed towards a love to our country and to man,’ Burke had which sought to impose the English language and culture on the Boers, written.(42) Even if Constant was much more critical of Burke than he as the Dutch farmers were called. In protest, the Boers emigrated was of Adam Smith, he definitely agreed, but the task in France was to and established their own republics north and east of Cape Colony, in try and develop new intermediary institutions such as the freedom of Transvaal and Orange Free State. There, they introduced segregation the press and a strong civic spirit. Constant was by no means oblivious where the native Black population did not possess any political rights. to the danger of unbridled materialism: ‘Along with its advantages, the Meanwhile, the British colonial administration encouraged immigration division of labor has great drawbacks. It circumscribes and thereby from British India, mostly in Natal, a new colony east of the Cape. South narrows the intellectual faculties. It reduces man to the level of a simple Africa offered large stretches of fertile land, and she became even more attractive when diamonds and gold were discovered in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In the Boer Wars which ended in 1902, the United (39) Ibid., p. 132. (40) Ibid., p. 134.

(41) Ralph Raico, Great Individualists of the Past: Benjamin Constant, New Individualist Review, Vol. 3, (43) Constant, Principles, p. 258. Adam Smith had of course made the same point. No. 2 (1964), p. 54. (44) Nicholas Capaldi, Introduction, Constant, Principles, p. xxii. (42) Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790),Select Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. II (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1999), p. 136. (45) Constant, Principles, p. 21. 204 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 205

Kingdom defeated and annexed the two Boer republics. After some three years later abolished the franchise which Blacks had enjoyed in the debate in the four colonies about whether a federation or a union should Cape and reinforced the 1913 law about black reserves. The Afrikaners be established, in 1910 they were merged into the Union of South Africa. were increasingly fearful of the black majority and white segregationists By then, South Africa had become a very diverse country ethnically, with gained ground, until in the 1948 elections they obtained a majority in the a large native majority, 67 per cent of the total population, two relatively Parliament and formed a government which reinforced and extended large minorities, Whites and ‘Coloureds’, as people of mixed origin segregation, apartheid in Afrikaans. Mixed marriages were prohibited were called, 22 and 9 per cent respectively, and a relatively small Indian in 1949 and segregation of lifts, toilets, parks, beaches, hotels, cinemas, minority, 2 per cent.(46) It was only in the Cape that non-Whites had any restaurants and other public spaces became mandatory in 1953. significant political rights. Education was also fully segregated. The franchise which Coloureds had In the first decade of the Union, the South African Party led by Boers enjoyed in the Cape was abolished. who now called themselves Afrikaners was dominant. Within the white The Apartheid regime was still largely in place when I went to South community, the Afrikaners were in a majority. Having a strong sense Africa in 1987. I travelled to the four main cities of the country, Cape of identity, they spoke their own language, Afrikaans, derived from Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban and used the opportunity to the original settlers’ Dutch, whereas the minority, mostly in the Cape, speak to people from the different political groups in the country. One of spoke English. In the new Union, unskilled white workers, especially in them was a member of the Conservative Party which had been founded the mining sector, resented what they saw as unfair competition from by hard-line Afrikaners in opposition to the ruling National Party which other ethnic groups. They formed militant labour unions and managed was by now seeking a compromise with leaders of the black majority. I in 1911 to have written into law segregation in the labour market and asked him: ‘In this country, interracial marriages are prohibited by law. privileges for Whites. This was the first colour bar. In 1913, a law was But what is really wrong with a white man marrying a black girl? Whom also enacted that provided for separate territories for white and black do they harm?’ He replied right away: ‘This white man in your example farmers. A Labour Party was founded with a socialist agenda, while some would be harming his race. It would not be the same afterwards. It would Afrikaners who were unhappy with attempts to reconcile the Afrikaner be weakened.’ This response illustrates the collectivism prevalent in the and the English-speaking communities founded the National Party. In Afrikaner community. They held fast to their identity, moulded by three the 1924 elections, the South African Party was defeated, and the Labour centuries of shared history, and were afraid of the fast-growing black Party and the National Party formed a coalition government which majority: having been 22 per cent of the population in the early twentieth sought to ensure various privileges of white workers. This was an ‘unholy century, the Whites were 15 per cent in 1986 whereas the Blacks were alliance’ of socialists and nationalists, seeking to keep Blacks inside now 74 per cent.(48) If the two communities had been roughly equal in tribal communities in the territories reserved for them. This aim was size, then probably there would not have been the pervasive fear of the not achieved, Blacks finding themselves barred ‘only from semi-skilled Blacks I could sense among the Whites, especially the Afrikaners. ‘We and skilled employments and not from work classed as unskilled’.(47) made a mistake at the end of the Second World War,’ a leading member The nationalist-socialist alliance lasted until 1933 when the National of the ruling National Party told me. ‘Then millions of people in Europe Party and the South African Party formed a coalition government which would have been willing to move to South Africa. We should have welcomed them. Then there would not have been this imbalance in the

(46) The numbers are from 1904. William K. Hancock, Smuts: The Sanguine Years 1870–1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 219. (47) William H. Hutt, The Economics of the Colour Bar (London: Andre Deutsch, 1964). (48) Survey of Race Relations—1986 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1986). 206 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 207 population of this country.’ It was obvious to me that most Afrikaners had tacitly accepted that the Apartheid regime was approaching its end. Even if the white minority had the means to deal with black insurgents, it was losing the will to do so, not least because Apartheid was economically inefficient, with all its restrictions on trade and petty regulations. On my tour of South Africa I spent a few days at the Mala Mala Game Resort, where at night dinner was served in an enclosed boma under the starlit sky. As I sat with other guests around the campfire, I chatted with them; they were mostly businessmen, and they complained bitterly about the problems Apartheid caused them. In effect, the South African economy was capitalism for Whites and socialism for Blacks. The enormous economic potential of the black majority, as producers and consumers, was largely untapped. The year before, two South African friends of mine, Leon Louw and Frances Kendall, had published a book about a possible peaceful transition to a free and democratic regime in their country, South Africa: The Solution. They argued that Apartheid was wrong both morally and economically, suggesting that non-white citizens of South Africa should be compensated for this affront to their dignity and self-respect. But this compensation should not consist in redistribution of resources from the white to the black community which was anyway bound to fail. Rather, it should be financed by selling off the substantial assets of the Modern society is built on South African government. Their main proposal was that South Africa commerce and not, like freely from one canton to another if they were should adopt the Swiss system of largely self-governing and relatively ancient society, on war, dissatisfied.(49) Power would not be relocated according to Constant. small cantons which has enabled the population of Switzerland to live Painting by Abraham Storck, from Whites to Blacks; instead, it would be peacefully together, although the citizens are divided into four linguistic Harbour Scene. broken up, becoming almost harmless. groups and two main religious groups. Some and perhaps most South The very idea that in South Africa African cantons would have a black majority, others a white majority, unrestrained and indivisible sovereignty had to be transferred from some a majority of Coloureds and others of Indians. In some the Dutch Whites to Blacks was of the same kind as the Jacobin project which Reformed Church would dominate, in others the Anglican Church; Constant had criticised where democratic despotism replaced royal Catholics or Jews might gravitate toward one canton or another. The despotism. In the next three years after my visit, the resolve of the white great advantage of the canton system would be that it would break the minority was further weakened by international developments, mainly spell of race: people would have nothing to fear because they could move the decline and fall of communism and the subsequent end of the Cold

(49) Leon Louw and Frances Kendall, South Africa: The Solution (Bisho, Ciskei: Amagi Publications, 1986). 208 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 209

War. The Afrikaner government announced in 1990 that it would release Constant emphasised that capital is usually more mobile than other factors the leader of the ANC, African National Congress, the charismatic of production such as labour. With the abolition of capital controls in Nelson Mandela, and end Apartheid. Mandela was however unwilling to most countries in the late twentieth century and innovations in transport accept a federal system with strong guarantees for ethnic minorities; he and telecommunications, capital has become even more mobile than in insisted on a unitary system with majority rule. Other ethnic minorities Constant’s day. Rich individuals and large corporations engage nowadays would have to rely on the mercy of the vast black majority. The Afrikaner in extensive tax planning, either moving their assets to low-tax countries government felt that it had to give in, and in 1994 general elections or organising exchange between their subsidiaries and agencies around were held, in which the ANC won a sweeping victory. Mandela became the world in such a manner that tax on them will mostly be collected in President. Since then, the course of events has not been nearly as bad as low-tax countries. Some European countries such as Ireland have tried some had feared. Mandela and some other leading members of the ANC to attract capital by offering tax advantages, not to mention tropical tax genuinely wanted national reconciliation. Nevertheless, the situation havens like the Cayman Islands and Panama. This has caused concern could have been better. Crime markedly increased, and corruption was in high-tax countries like Germany and France, the two most powerful rampant in the ranks of the ANC. Apprehensive about the future, many Member States of the European Union. In 1997, EU finance ministers Whites emigrated: In 2019 Whites were only 8 per cent of the population, adopted a ‘Code of Conduct’ according to which Member States undertook whereas Blacks were 81 per cent, Coloureds 9 per cent and Indians to roll back existing tax measures that constitute ‘harmful tax competition’ 2 per cent.(50) Perhaps their fears were not altogether unfounded. In and to refrain from introducing any such measures in the future. The EU 2018, ANC activist Cyril Ramaphosa became President and announced politicians claimed that ‘harmful tax competition’ included cases when that his government would expropriate without compensation land corporations enjoyed an effective level of taxation significantly lower than owned by white farmers and transfer it to black farmers. He ignores the general level of taxation in the countries concerned; when tax benefits lessons of history. In neighbouring Zimbabwe the economy collapsed were reserved for non-residents; and when tax incentives were offered for because property rights were not secure: the land of white farmers was activities isolated from the domestic economy and which would therefore expropriated without compensation. have no impact on the national tax base.(52) In 2017, the European Commission estimated ‘revenue losses’ from profit shifting within the Constant on Tax Competition EU alone to be 50–70 billion euros.(53) It called on Member States such as Ireland, Cyprus and Malta to stop ‘aggressive tax planning’. Another contemporary issue where Constant’s political thought is relevant There are two reasons why the EU and some other international is in the discussion about tax competition and harmonisation in Europe. organisations find tax competition harmful. First, it may create a ‘race In his 1819 speech about two kinds of liberty, Constant said: ‘Commerce to the bottom’, forcing governments to cut public spending and reduce confers a new quality on property, circulation. Without circulation, the production of certain desirable public goods, such as education and property is merely a usufruct; political authority can always affect poverty relief. In the second place, it seems unfair that some taxpayers usufruct, because it can prevent its enjoyment; but circulation creates an invisible and invincible obstacle to the actions of social power.’(51) Here (52) Conclusions of the Ecofin Council Meeting on 1 December 1997, concerning tax policy,Official Journal of the European Communities, 6 January 1998. https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/ taxation/files/resources/documents/coc_en.pdf

(50) Mid-year population estimates (Statistics South Africa: Pretoria, 2019), p. 8. (53) European Commission, Curbing Aggressive Tax Planning (20 November 2017). http://www. europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/150511/5%20-%2004%20european-semester_thematic-factsheet_ (51) Constant, Liberty, pp. 324–325. curbing-agressive-tax-planning_en.pdf 210 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 211 who benefit from public spending can avoid financing them just because they have a mobile tax base. But these two arguments rest on the implausible assumptions that the present level of public spending is optimal so that a cut would be harmful and that the given distribution of tax burdens is fair so that a change in it would be undesirable. Consider the provision of public goods. When is it at an optimal level? When are the public goods being provided desirable? The only logical answer would be when everyone desires them.(54) Their utility to each individual also would have to be higher than the utility brought about by the private goods which could have been produced with the resources devoted to the production of those public goods. Moreover, the distribution of the corresponding tax burden would have to be considered unanimously as the fairest possible one. Switzerland is an example of in order to lighten their tax burdens, the tax It is obvious that no tax system is optimal in this strict sense, but this the benefits of tax competition. bases in the high-tax countries they leave She not only attracts capital means that the tacit assumptions of the EU about the harm from tax from abroad, because she may contract. This does not necessarily is stable politically, but the competition are not necessarily true. On the contrary, such competition cantons also compete with mean that remaining taxpayers would have may serve to reveal individual preferences about alternative bundles of one another. to suffer higher taxes, because the costs of public services and taxation on offer in different tax jurisdictions; and providing public goods may vary with the thus to restrain government, both at the national and local level, from number of their consumers. It would only be when the costs are fixed and imposing higher taxes on the citizens than these citizens would like.(55) not variable (and when governments resist cutting public spending) that Thus, tax competition may be useful for the citizens. ‘How could we taxes in the high-tax countries would have to be raised even more. Also, say that a process which is preventing someone (the state) from being the tax bases in the low-tax countries receiving them may expand. Such harmful to others be harmful?’ French economist Pascal Salin asks.(56) moves may often imply spontaneous redistribution from the rich to the In fact, there does not seem to have been any significant ‘race to the poor. For example, when a large corporation relocates a factory from a bottom’ in Europe despite some tax competition taking place there. high-income, high-tax country such as Sweden to a low-income, low- It is true that usually capital is more mobile than other factors of tax country such as Bangladesh, income is in effect redistributed from production, but highly educated labour is also quite mobile, and even high-income workers in the country of origin to low-income workers in unskilled labour is somewhat mobile, as immigration problems in the country of choice. In the long run, the high-income workers in the many European countries amply demonstrate. country of origin also benefit from the move because they are consumers When rich people and large corporations move to low-tax countries and the goods can be produced more cheaply in the country of choice. Tax competition is not necessarily a zero-sum game where one man’s gain is offset by another man’s loss. By preventing taxes from becoming (54) Cf. the discussion about the unanimity requirement for collective or public choices if they are to be as non-coercive as private choices in the marketplace, in the chapter in this book on Buchanan. too high, it facilitates productive investment and employment. Low-tax (55) Charles M. Tiebout, A Pure Theory of Local Expenditure, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 64, No. 5 (1956), pp. 416–424. (56) Pascal Salin, The Case Against Tax Harmonisation, Cutting Taxes to Increase Prosperity, ed. by Hannes H. Gissurarson and Tryggvi Th. Herbertsson (Reykjavik: Bokafelagid, 2007), p. 76. 212 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 213 jurisdictions also make global capital markets more efficient.(57) and the value-added tax if approved regularly by the majority of voters Moreover, rich people and large corporations may move away and the majority of cantons. In addition, the 2,800 municipalities also for a reason. In many countries the tax system discriminates against have various powers over taxation, depending on the constitution of the high income, by progressive income taxes, and against savings canton in which they find themselves. Nevertheless, there has been no and investment, by taxing income saved as well as income spent. ‘race to the bottom’ in Switzerland which is a country providing excellent Incidentally, Constant rejected taxes on capital: public services. The effects of tax competition are demonstrated by the two adjacent cantons Nidwalden and Oberwalden. The former has long Capital is only accumulated assets, gradually taken out pursued a low-tax strategy unlike the latter one, with the result that of income. The more you encroach upon capital, the Nidwalden’s GDP per capita became significantly higher than that of more income declines, the less asset accumulation can her neighbour, which used to have the heaviest tax burden in the whole happen, and the less capital can reproduce itself. The country, relying on central government subsidies. In 2006, however, State which taxes capital prepares therefore the ruin Oberwalden changed her policies and lightened the tax burden.(59) In of individuals. It gradually takes away their property. 2019, Nidwalden offered the second-lowest corporate tax rate in the Now, the security of that property being one of the world, after Hong Kong, with Obwalden in the fifth place (coming after state’s obligations, it is apparent that individuals have three other Swiss cantons).(60) But because of decentralisation, the failed the right to assert that obligation against a system of policies of Oberwalden in the past were confined to one small area in taxation with results contrary to that end.(58) Switzerland and not imposed on the whole of the country. The relative ease with which people can move between cantons or ‘vote with their The determination of the tax base may reflect the political constituency feet’ also puts some pressure on the tax collectors. Switzerland illustrates of the tax collectors: There are more votes to be gained from the many the advantages of divided and limited sovereignty. But the lesson derived medium and low-income people than from the rather few rich; and by from Constant’s country of origin and applicable to France, his country discriminating against the future, which has no vote, the tax collectors of choice, and indeed to the whole world, has still not been learned, alas, may win the support of the present generations. It is this discrimination by most. which is harmful and unfair, not tax competition. Perhaps the mobility of capital should not be seen as an unfair advantage of capital owners, but rather as a means somewhat to correct the strong political bias against the rich on the one hand and against the future on the other hand. Switzerland is one example of the benefits of tax competition, not as much because she tends to receive tax exiles from abroad as because there is vigorous competition between her 26 cantons. In effect, the country is a federation of 26 small sovereign states, each of them enjoying tax sovereignty. The federal government can only levy the income tax

(59) Pierre Bessard, Tax Competition: The Swiss Case, Cutting Taxes, p. 89. (57) Richard Teather, The Benefits of Tax Competition (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2005). (60) BAK Taxation Index 2019 (Basel: BAK Economics, 2019). Table 1, BAK Taxation Index für (58) Constant, Principles, p. 215. Unternehmen 2019, p. 2. 214 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) 215

Frédéric Bastiat

(1801–1850)

n trying to describe spontaneous coordination in the marketplace, Adam Smith used the notion of an ‘invisible hand’: people who were Ijust pursuing their own private interest, were brought to work for the public interest; in order to sell their goods or services they had to offer better terms than their competitors. Hence, the task of the economist could be regarded as that of making the invisible hand visible. It should be to explain why people do not need commands from above to balance demand and supply; why the common good is best served by economic freedom; and why human actions often have unintended consequences, good and bad. During his short writing career in the 1840s, French writer and politician Frédéric Bastiat did this with unsurpassed force and clarity, in accessible and lively prose. Joseph Schumpeter called him ‘the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived’,(1) and Friedrich von Hayek wrote that he was ‘a publicist of genius’,(2) although neither Schumpeter nor Hayek thought highly of him as an economic theorist, perhaps unjustly: even if Bastiat’s contribution to conservative-liberal thought may chiefly have been that of exposing economic fallacies, which by itself is no mean achievement, he has been underestimated as an economist. His arguments against Ricardo’s theory of rent and Malthus’ theory of over-population are cogent and plausible. Moreover, Bastiat came close to formulating the useful concept of opportunity cost. His distinction between visible short-term consequences of human

In his witty parables, Bastiat exposed protectionist fallacies. He taught that the state was “the great fiction by (1) Joseph Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. which everyone endeavours to live 500. at the expense of everyone else”. French engraving. (2) Friedrich A. Hayek, Introduction, Frédéric Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political Economy (Princeton NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1964), p. ix. 216 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 217 actions and their invisible, but no less real, long-term consequences is it was only wine that was spilt,’ Bastiat wrote.(3) A year later he married both illuminating and inspiring: it reinforces, deepens and extends the a local girl, Marie-Clotilde Hiard, but they were not close and came to traditional argument made by Smith for economic freedom. live separate lives. The same year, in 1831, he was appointed Mugron’s Justice of the Peace. Fluent in English, he followed with great interest Bastiat’s Life and Works the activities of the English free trade movement led by Richard Cobden and John Bright. Claude-Frédéric Bastiat was born on 30 June 1801 in the port town In October 1844 Bastiat’s life took an unexpected turn when he Bayonne on the Bay of Biscay, in Aquitaine, near the Spanish border. published his first article in a French economics journal and suddenly His father Pierre ran a trading house with his father and brother-in- found himself a recognised author. Encouraged by the favourable law, but their business was severely hampered by the Napoleonic wars reaction, he continued writing and publishing and also began a which raged until Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815. Bastiat’s mother, Marie correspondence with Cobden. In May 1845 he went to Paris, met with Julie, born Frechou, and his grandmother both died of tuberculosis other free traders and arranged for the publication of two books, one when he was seven years old, upon which his grandfather and his father on Cobden and the free trade movement in Great Britain, the other a moved to a small estate the family owned in Mugron, also in Aquitaine. collection of articles against protectionism, Economic Sophisms.(4) In His father soon died of tuberculosis, and Bastiat was raised by his 1846, Bastiat went again to Paris, trying to establish a French free trade grandfather and aunt. He attended a prestigious grammar school at movement on the model of the English one. He found the task daunting Sorèze, near Carcassonne, but returned to Bayonne in 1818 to work in and wrote to Cobden: ‘Believe me, it is neither my spirit nor my heart that the family firm, under the reign of the restored Bourbon kings. During is failing. But I feel that this superb Babylon is not my place and I must his stay in Bayonne, Bastiat studied business and read the works of Adam make haste to return to my solitude.’(5) Nevertheless, he and his allies Smith and his French and English disciples. He became a committed succeeded in founding the Free Trade Association whose first meeting free trader, publicly criticising the protectionism which restricted was held in Paris 28 August 1846. Some local associations were also opportunities in Bayonne and other French port towns. When Bastiat’s founded in France. The Association started a newspaper in which Bastiat grandfather passed away in 1825, he returned to the family estate in published some of his best-known essays, such as the ‘Petition of the Mugron where he devoted his time for the next few years to reading and Candlemakers’. Word spread around Europe, and similar associations reflecting on economics on politics. In Mugron, he became a close friend were formed in Spain, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, and Germany. Hopes of a neighbour, the lawyer Félix Coudroy, whom he converted from were high, not least after the repeal of the British Corn Laws in 1846. socialism. For the next twenty years, these two young men had animated But Bastiat’s Association, already struggling, was overcome by events. and intensive discussions about books and ideas almost every day. Bastiat In February 1848, increased unemployment in an economic depression supported the 1830 Revolution when the reactionary King Charles X and popular dissatisfaction with the staid and uninspiring regime led was deposed and replaced by a cousin, Louis-Philippe of Orléans. He to its overthrow by the Parisian crowds, the government finding itself even went to Bayonne and enlisted in a revolutionary force which was prepared to take the government citadel by force if necessary. Instead, (3) Letter to Félix Coudroy, Bayonne 5 August 1830. The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, Vol. I, the citadel opened its gates and the officers of the garrison invited the tran. by Jane and Michel Willems (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2011), p. 30. Most of Bastiat’s works are online, at the Liberty Fund website. young revolutionaries in to join a celebration. ‘I was expecting blood but (4) Frédéric Bastiat, Cobden et la Ligue, ou, L’agitation anglaise pour la liberte du commerce (Paris: Guillaumin, 1845); Sophismes économiques (Paris: Guillaumin, 1846). (5) Letter to Richard Cobden, Paris 25 March 1846. Collected Works, Vol. I, p. 96. 218 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 219

was, they said, ‘counter-revolutionary’.(7) The day the Paris insurrection began, one of Bastiat’s friends, the liberal economist Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui—brother of the notorious socialist—overheard a servant in his house saying, as he was clearing the table after dinner: ‘Next Sunday we shall be eating the wings of the chicken.’ A maid replied: ‘And we shall be wearing fine silk dresses.’(8) Bastiat declined a tentative offer from Lamartine of a position in the new government, but despite his failing health he stood as a candidate in elections to the Constituent Assembly and was elected. Other delegates included the liberal writer Alexis de Tocqueville, the poet and novelist Victor Hugo and the socialist Pierre- Joseph Proudhon. In 1835 and 1840, Tocqueville had published the two parts of his treatise on Democracy in America. His influence on Bastiat can for example be detected in this comment from 1849: ‘Among all races, it seems that civilisation raises the level of the masses and lowers the value put on individual character.’(9) This seems to be an echo of Tocqueville’s analysis of the effects produced by the pursuit of self- interest in commercial society: ‘Consider a few individuals, it lowers without any support and the National Guard Bastiat supported the them. Envisage the species, it elevates it.’(10) Bastiat was however critical 1830 Revolution in which (11) unwilling to take action. King Louis-Philippe a reactionary king was of what he considered to be Tocqueville’s pessimism. went into exile, a provisional government replaced by a constitutional In the Constituent Assembly, Bastiat opposed National Workshops monarch. Painting by Eugène was formed and the Second French Republic Delacroix, Liberty Leading which the provisional government had started. When the cost of the was proclaimed. Bastiat witnessed the riots the People. Workshops became exorbitant and they were abolished in June 1848, in Paris and wrote woefully to a friend at riots broke out in Paris, but they were suppressed by troops under home: ‘We have tried so many things; when shall we try the simplest of General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac. During this troublesome time, all: freedom?’(6) Bastiat was tireless in trying to explain economic principles and to An acquaintance of Bastiat, the poet Alphonse de Lamartine, led the expose falsehoods to his colleagues in the Constituent Assembly as well 1848 uprising. Neither he nor the other revolutionaries had any idea as to the general public in newspapers and journals. He also criticised about what to do, and every fantasist and fanatic in the capital loudly businessmen. ‘Under another name, many industrialists, highly honest presented a plan for the future, while the masses suddenly thought that they had become the masters. For example, when Bastiat started a short- (7) Letter to Félix Coudroy, Paris 29 February 1848. Collected Works, Vol. I, p. 144. lived journal to try and persuade people not to rely solely on government (8) The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, tran. by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (New York: for their prosperity, the printers expressed their disapproval: the journal Macmillan, 1896), pp. 197–198. Italics in the original. (9) Letter to Mme Chevreux, Brussels June 1849: Collected Works, Vol. I, p. 201. (10) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1840), tran. by James T. Schleifer, Vol. 3 (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2010), p. 922. (6) Here after George Charles Roche III, Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone (New Rochelle NY: Arlington (11) Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, tran. by W. Hayden Boyers (Irvington-on-Hudson NY: House, 1971), p. 79. Foundation for Economic Education, 1964 [1850]), pp. xxviii and 531. 220 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 221 people incidentally, treat communism as it is always treated, that is to say, pamphlet, elaborating on a theme that he already mentioned in a speech on the condition that only other people’s property will be shared out.’(12) to the Constituent Assembly, What is Seen and What is Not Seen.(17) In Despite his weak voice and faltering health, Bastiat spoke eloquently in September 1850 he went to Italy on his doctors’ advice. When he felt the Assembly: ‘Our doctrine is based on private property. Communism death approaching, he sent for a confessor. ‘I want,’ he told a friend who is based on systematic plunder, since it consists in handing over to one was present, ‘to die in the religion of my forefathers. I have always loved man, without compensation, the labour of another. If it distributed it, even though I have not followed its external practices.’(18) Bastiat to each one according to his labour, it would, in fact, recognise private passed away in Rome on 24 December. He was only 49 years old. property and would no longer be communism.’(13) Bastiat did not blame General Cavaignac for temporarily suspend­ What is Seen and What is Not Seen ing all forms of freedom during the June 1848 riots, arguing that his measures had been necessary to ensure public safety.(14) In the presi­ Bastiat begins his celebrated essay on ‘What is Seen and What Is Not dential elections of late 1848, Bastiat supported the General who was Seen, or Political Economy in One Lesson’ by pointing out that an action, how­ever roundly defeated by the populist Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, a habit, an institution or a law produces not just one effect, but a series nephew of Emperor Napoleon. In 1849, Bastiat was elected to the Leg­ of effects. Only the first one is immediate and revealed simultaneously islative Assembly. He did not join any faction of the Assembly, writing with its cause: It is seen. The other effects occur later: They are not seen, to his constituents: ‘Yes, I have voted with the right against the left and we are lucky if we foresee them. Bastiat goes on to say that this when it was a matter of resisting the excesses of mistaken popular ideas. defines the difference between a bad and a good economist. A bad one Yes, I have voted with the left against the right when the legitimate relies on the visible effect, whereas the good one takes account both of complaints of the poor, suffering classes were being ignored.’(15) Unlike the effect one can see and the effects one must try to foresee. This is a his fellow liberal Tocqueville, he opposed colonisation, having written crucial difference, because frequently the immediate consequence is already in 1846 that it was ‘the most disastrous illusion ever to have led favourable, while later consequences are disastrous, and conversely: the nations astray’.(16) He was also active in the French pacifist movement, immediate consequence may be unpleasant, while later consequences participating in August 1849 in a peace congress in Paris over which are advantageous. Thus, a bad economist will pursue a small current Victor Hugo presided. Now suffering from throat cancer, he did not speak benefit followed by a large disadvantage in the future, whereas a good frequently in the Assembly, while from his pen flowed a steady stream economist will prefer a large benefit in the future at the risk of suffering of articles and pamphlets. Bastiat’s wife died in February 1850. Now in a small disadvantage immediately. a race with death, Bastiat in early 1850 published Economic Harmonies, Bastiat takes an example. The dreadful son of James Goodfellow a summary of his economic ideas, and in the summer he composed a breaks a window,(19) and the onlookers seek to console the angry father short book, The Law, on the proper functions of the state, and a famous with this observation: ‘Good comes out of everything. Accidents like this keep production moving. Everyone has to live. What would happen

(12) Protectionism and Communism (1849), The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, Vol. II, tran. by Jane and Michel Willen (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2012), p. 236. Italics supplied. (13) Roche, A Man Alone, p. 118. (17) Frédéric Bastiat, Harmonies économiques (Paris: Guillaumin, 1850); La Loi (Paris: Guillaumin, 1850); Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas (Paris: Guillaumin, 1850). (14) Letter to Félix Coudroy, Paris 26 August 1848. Collected Works, Vol. I, p. 162. (18) Letter from Prosper Paillottet to Mme Cheuvreux, Rome 22 December 1850. Collected Works, Vol. (15) Letter to a Group of Supporters, 1849. Ibid., p. 389. I, p. 297. (16) To the Electors of the District of Saint-Sever, Ibid., p. 363. (19) Bastiat himself uses the name Jacques Bonhomme. 222 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 223 to glaziers if no window panes were ever broken?’ But the theory and the money are taken to Metz, one intended to provide a living for behind this observation is fallacious, Bastiat says, however common the other over a year without doing anything. It seems that for Metz the it may be. If it is necessary to spend six francs to repair the damage, change is beneficial. For the village it is not, because it has lost one man then it is true that six francs will go to the glazing industry and thus it and a thousand francs. will stimulate it. This is what is seen. But what is not seen is that now Does the gain for Metz not compensate for the loss for the village? Goodfellow cannot spend these very six francs on new shoes (or books This is where the loss enters, Bastiat points out. In the village the man or other goods or services). The outcome for the economy is that the worked for three hundred days a year, digging and ploughing, producing glazing industry has been stimulated to the tune of six francs, whereas goods. In Metz, he is engaged in unproductive work for three hundred the shoemaking industry (or some other sector of the economy) would days a year. Suppose now that the deputy’s proposal to discharge the have been stimulated to the tune of six francs if the window had not one hundred thousand men is accepted. What is seen is that they enter been broken. The outcome however for James Goodfellow is different. the labour market and may bid down wages for others. What is not seen In the case of the broken window, he would spend six francs and enjoy is that at the same time one hundred million francs are not destroyed: the benefit of a window neither more or less than before. But if the they are returned to taxpayers. Casting one hundred thousand men onto accident had not happened, he would have spent six francs on shoes the market is also casting the one hundred million francs intended for and would have had the benefit both of a pair of shoes and a window. their upkeep onto the same market. Since the measure which increases Since Goodfellow is a member of society, the conclusion is that it has the supply of labour also increases the demand for it, the alleged lost the value of the broken window. reduction in wages is an illusion; at most it is temporary. The difference Bastiat applies this insight to a series of other examples. Here I is that taxpayers are handing over money, either to soldiers in return for shall discuss only three of them. A deputy proposes to discharge one nothing, or to workers in return for something. hundred thousand men from the army in order to save one hundred million francs. Bastiat hastens to say that if there is a real need to keep Art Subsidies and Trade Restrictions those one hundred thousand men under arms, then he would have no argument to refute. It would be a necessary sacrifice. But if it is claimed Government subsidies to art are also commonly proposed. Bastiat that the sacrifice is in fact an advantage because if discharged those acknowledges that art may expand and elevate the soul of a nation, one hundred thousand men would be a burden on the economy, then tearing it away from purely material preoccupations and giving it an Bastiat protests. It is true that one hundred thousand men who cost appreciation of beauty, and that thus art may have a beneficial effect on taxpayers one hundred million francs would live and provide a living for the nation’s manners, customs, and habits. Bastiat also recognises some their suppliers to the extent that one hundred million francs could be counter-arguments. One is redistribution: they imply that artisans are spread. This is what is seen. But the one hundred million francs which taxed in order to provide increased income to artists. This hardly seems would be extracted from the pockets of taxpayers, would interfere just. Moreover, it is not certain that subsidies encourage creative art. with the economic lives of these taxpayers and their suppliers to the Bastiat admits, in addition, that he is one of those who think that choice tune of that same one hundred million francs. That is what is not seen. should come from below, not above—from citizens, not legislators. He Bastiat illustrates the loss in this particular case by moving from the stresses that opposition to government subsidies of an activity is not one hundred thousand men and the one hundred million francs to one the same as opposition to that activity itself. But he emphatically rejects man and a thousand francs. This one man is recruited from a village, the argument that subsidies to art are productive in themselves because while the tax collector carries off from it one thousand francs. The man they stimulate work. 224 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 225

In the Constituent Assembly, Bastiat’s fellow deputy and acquaintance Lamartine had used the stimulation argument in a discussion about a proposed grant of 60,000 francs to a theatre in Paris. In his essay, Bastiat responds:

Yes, it is to the workers in the theatres that these sixty thousand francs in question will go, at least in part. A few trifling sums may well be lost in transit. If you give the matter close scrutiny, actually, you may discover that things work out quite differently, such that fortunate are those workers if a few scraps are left to them! However, I am willing to accept that the entire subsidy will go to the painters, decorators, costume makers, hairdressers, etc. This is what is seen. But where has it come from? This is the other side of the question that is just as important to examine as its face. Where is the source of these sixty thousand francs? And where would they go if a legislative vote did not After the 1848 Revolution, initially send them to the rue de Rivoli and from there Bastiat was elected to the ploughmen buy their iron from the Belgians, to the rue de Grenelle? That is what is not seen.(20) Constituent Assembly either directly or through middlemen. where he opposed socialist fantasies. Print Collector. Frustrated and angry, Constraint first intends The taxpayers who have to provide the 60,000 francs no longer have to go to the border and shoot everybody who them available and hence cannot spend them on other goods or services. trades with the Belgians. He has second thoughts, however, when he It is an illusion that a government grant to a theatre in Paris adds realises that such an action might not be taken kindly by the traders and anything to national well-being and work: it just displaces enjoyment, that he could not anyway hinder all exchanges across the long border. and a displacement is not a gain. About to resign himself to being merely as free as everybody else, he Bastiat’s third example is about trade restrictions. A man named suddenly gets an idea. In Paris there is a great law factory. If he could Constraint can supply iron to his fellow Frenchmen for 15 francs a obtain a tiny little law which said: ‘Iron from Belgium is prohibited,’ quintal,(21) whereas the Belgians can, because nature has been more then an invincible force of customs officers would see to it that he could prodigal to them, supply the same amount for 10 francs. Consequently, a sell his iron for fifteen francs a quintal. He goes to Paris and tells the host of nail makers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, mechanics, farriers and legislators that everybody would profit by such a law. He would expand his operations and provide jobs to more workers, and they in turn would spend their money on all kinds of supplies, which would act as a spur on (20) What is Seen and What is Not Seen (1850), Collected Works, Vol. III (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2016), p. 417. Italics in the original. The Ministry of Finance was located in the rue de Rivoli, and the whole economy. the Ministry of Education and Fine Arts in the rue de Grenelle. The legislators are convinced by Constraint and pass the law he (21) In the French original text, Bastiat uses the name ‘Prohibant’. In the same spirit, I coined the name Constraint. proposes. It has all the consequences foretold by him. But his reasoning 226 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 227 is not as much false as incomplete, Constant suggests: ‘Petitioning for a and planted; wheat had been harvested, ground, kneaded, and prepared; privilege, he had pointed out those of its effectsthat are seen, leaving those iron, steel, wood, and stone had to be converted into production tools; that are not seen in the shadows. He presented two people only, when some people had to exploit the strength of animals, others had to harness there are three in the cast. It is up to us to put right this involuntary or the powers of a waterfall. In the course of the day, the cabinetmaker perhaps premeditated oversight.’(22) Now, the blacksmith, the nail maker, consumes a little sugar and a little olive oil, and uses a few utensils, all wheelwright, farrier, ploughman or builder have each to pay fifteen francs of which are produced by others. He leaves his house and finds his street a quintal for the iron; Constraint’s gain is their loss. What is not seen paved and lighted. He goes to church, and brings a book with him whose offsets what is seen, with an injustice added to it. But there is a second loss, author had professional training, frequented libraries and seminaries, for the third person in the cast. The ordinary citizen now has to pay fifteen drew knowledge from the sources of human tradition, and was able to francs for what previously cost ten francs. Before the little law was passed, live his life without having to concern himself with his bodily needs. he would not have thrown the five francs he could save on cheaper iron The cabinetmaker takes a trip and finds that other men have facilitated into the river; he would have given them to a businessman in exchange for it by smoothing and levelling the ground, lowering the mountains, a particular object he desires, for example a book. In this case, he would spanning the rivers, filling in the valleys, placing wheeled cars on blocks have obtained both the required amount of iron and the desired book. But of sandstone or iron rails, taming horses and harnessing steam. Thus, in after the law is passed, he has only the iron and cannot buy the book. This one day the cabinetmaker consumes more things than he could produce is therefore for him a net loss. Bastiat asks what is really the difference himself in centuries. What is true of him, is also true of all other men. between Mr. Constraint going on the one hand in person to the border, Yet no one has robbed anyone else. Bastiat sums up the lesson from this using violence to hinder the trade of iron across it, and him on the other observation: ‘So ingenious, so powerful, then, is the social mechanism hand enlisting the great law factory in Paris to hinder the trade by force. that every man, even the humblest, obtains in one day more satisfactions ‘Some people think that plunder loses all its immorality when it is legal. than he could produce for himself in several centuries.’(24) For my part, I cannot imagine a circumstance that is worse. Be that as it may, what is certain is that the economic results are the same.’(23) The Petition of the Candlemakers Economic analysis enables us to extend our social vision and grasp the invisible hand. In another piece, Bastiat asks his readers to envisage One of Bastiat’s most famous satires in support of free trade is the a simple village cabinetmaker who spends his days planing boards. But ‘Petition of the Candlemakers’.(25) Written in 1846, it is supposed to there is more to the story than meets the eye. Every day the cabinetmaker be directed to members of the Chamber of Deputies (in place before gets up and dresses. His clothes are the product of a collective effort: the 1848 revolution) by manufacturers of tallow candles, wax candles, Americans have produced the cotton; Indians the dye; Frenchmen the lamps, candlesticks, street lamps, snuffers, extinguishers, and producers wool and the flax; Brazilians the leather; and all these materials have of tallow, oil, resin, alcohol, and in general of everything relating to been shipped to various cities to be processed, spun, woven and dyed. Then the cabinetmaker has breakfast. For his bread to arrive every (24) Bastiat, Harmonies, p. 4. Earlier, Adam Smith had made the same point in his example of a simple morning, farm lands had to be cleared, fenced in, ploughed, fertilised, woollen coat, arguing that ‘without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated’. Wealth of Nations, Bk. I, Ch. I, p. 14. Later, Leonard Read wrote a similar piece, inspired by Bastiat and possibly also by Smith. I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read, The Freeman, Vol. 8, No. 12 (1958), pp. 32–37. (22) Seen and Not Seen, Collected Works, Vol. III, p. 429. Italics in the original. (25) Frédéric Bastiat, Pétition des fabricants de chandelles, etc., Journal des économistes, Vol. 12 (1845), (23) Ibid., p. 431. pp. 204–207. 228 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 229 lighting. These manufacturers tell the deputies that there is a wonderful what the other owes to artificial and consequently expensive heat.’(27) opportunity to keep the domestic market for domestic labour only: Therefore, in Paris an orange from Lisbon can be said to be half-free. But this is used by French orange producers as an argument to exclude it. It We are suffering from the intolerable competition is claimed that domestic labour cannot withstand the competition. They of a foreign rival whose situation with regard to the must do everything by themselves and Portuguese labour only half the production of light, it appears, is so far superior to ours task, with the sun accomplishing the rest. But if a product is excluded for that it is flooding our national market at a price that being half-free, what about a product that is totally free, such as sunlight? is astonishingly low for, as soon as he comes on the It should be rejected with twice as much zeal, Bastiat exclaims on behalf scene, our sales cease, all consumers go to him, and of the sun’s competitors in producing light. He follows the argument of a sector of French industry whose ramifications are the petitioners to its absurd conclusion. His serious point is that when countless is suddenly afflicted with total stagnation. a product, wool from New Zealand, Chilean wine, fish from Iceland or This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging sunshine in the Canary Islands, can be acquired with less effort than if such a bitter war against us that we suspect that it is we made it ourselves, then the difference in effort, and hence in price, is instigated by perfidious Albion (good diplomacy in a gift bestowed on us. It is our loss if we refuse to avail ourselves of the the current climate!), especially as it treats this proud various advantages nature has given to different territories and different island in a way which it denies us.(26) individuals and which are offered to us through free trade. This same point is vividly brought out in another parable in which The petitioners point out that the legislators, by forbidding access to Bastiat uses the familiar figure of Robinson Crusoe on the desert island. natural light, such as closing doors and windows during the day, would He recalls Crusoe’s comment that if he wants a board, he has no other create a need for artificial light. Thus, if more tallow would be consumed, way but to cut down a tree, set it on an edge before him, and hew it flat many more cattle and sheep would be needed, and this in turn would lead on either side with his axe.(28) Bastiat observes that it takes Crusoe two to an increase in artificial meadows, meat, wool, leather, and fertilisers. weeks to make a plank, and meanwhile he has to live on his provisions, Again, if more oil and resin would be consumed, many more poppies and while his axe becomes blunt. Then Bastiat adds his own variant of the olive trees would be cultivated, and thousands of ships would go to catch story. Just when Crusoe is about to give the first stroke of his axe, he whales. The petitioners add that even if consumers may have an interest sees a plank cast up by the waves on the beach. He runs to pick it up, in the admission of natural light, producers have one in its prohibition. but then he suddenly remembers the protectionist argument and stops. Bastiat’s piece is a clever restatement of Adam Smith’s argument for If he picks up the plank, it would only cost him the effort of carrying it the division of labour. The premise is that countries as well as individuals and the time to run down the cliff and climb it again. But if he makes a may have special natural advantages. New Zealand is well suited for plank with his axe, he would give himself enough work for two weeks, sheep rearing, Chile for wine growing, Iceland for fishing, the Canary while he would wear out his axe which would give him the opportunity Islands for tourism. Bastiat himself takes a simple, but highly relevant, of repairing it, and he would also eat up his provisions and have to obtain example: ‘If an orange from Lisbon is sold at half the price of an orange fresh ones. Therefore the right thing for Crusoe to do is to push this plank from Paris, it is because natural and consequently free heat gives to one

(27) Ibid., p. 52. (28) Daniel Defoe, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1820 (26) Petition by the Manufacturers of Candles, Etc., Collected Works, Vol. III, p. 50. [1719]), p. 93. 230 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 231

from alternatives, we implicitly reject, or sacrifice, the other alternative as second-best, and this is our opportunity cost. In his parables, Bastiat demonstrates that the opportunity cost of creating jobs by government intervention will be the non-creation of an unknown, but perhaps much larger number of jobs in the private sector.(31) The created jobs are what is seen, whereas the non-created jobs are what is not seen. Bastiat’s emphasis on exchangeability rather than labour as the source of value also enables him to identify some of the problems with Ricardo’s theory of rent and Malthus’ theory of over-population, both of which were accepted by most nineteenth century economists. David Ricardo taught that land was different from other goods in that its supply was more or less fixed, while demand could change. A landowner derived back into the sea: thus he can create more In the famous story of the income from his land in proportion to its quality, or fertility, and this was broken window, Bastiat work for himself, and ‘work is wealth’, as points out that the immediate rent, a unique form of income. The quality of land was a gift of nature, not protectionists claim. Bastiat agrees that this and visible effects of the result of the landowner’s labour.(32) Bastiat’s fellow member of the an action can be quite line of reasoning is absurd: ‘It is nevertheless different from its invisible Constituent Assembly, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, therefore concluded: consequences in the long the one followed by any nation that protects run. The destruction of ‘Who is entitled to the rent of the land? The producer of the land, itself through prohibition. It rejects the goods cannot stimulate the without doubt. Who made the land? God. Then, proprietor, retire!’(33) economy. Photo: Thomas plank offered to it for little work in order to Castelazo. Obviously, Proudhon considered the state to be God’s representative on give itself more work.’(29) Bastiat also points earth. On a sombrer note, later in the nineteenth century Henry George out that in the two weeks Crusoe would save proposed the transfer of all rent from land to government (leaving by picking up the plank instead of making a new one from the tree, he with the landowner that part of his income which was the result of his could do something else. improvement of the land) through a special land tax which could replace Since Bastiat has a singular ability to state his argument for free most or even all other taxes.(34) Bastiat however thinks that there is trade clearly, all this may seem elementary and obvious. Nonetheless, nothing about land that makes it different in kind rather than degree protectionism has prevailed in many places and many times, supported by the logical fallacies exposed by Bastiat. It is unfair however to regard (31) David M. Hart, The Paris School of Liberal Political Economy, The Cambridge History of French Bastiat merely as a brilliant economic journalist. As an economist, he Thought, ed. by Michael Moriarty and Jeremy Jennings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 301–313. Cf. Anthony de Jasay, The Costly Mistake of Ignoring Opportunity Costs, Political is an independent and original thinker. For example, in the parables Economy, Concisely: Essays on Policy that does not work and Markets that do (Indianapolis IN: Liberty about the broken window, the candlemakers and Robinson Crusoe he Fund, 2009), pp. 303–306. is really introducing the important concept of opportunity cost, first (32) David Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (London: John Murray, 1817). (30) (33) Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of formally defined by Friedrich von Wieser in 1876. When we choose Government (1840), tran. by Benjamin R. Tucker (New York: Humboldt Publishing Company, 1893), Ch. III, §1. Marx and Engels, of course, listed the ‘Abolition of property in land and application of all rents to land to public purposes’ as the first priority of a communist government. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848). Werke, Vol. 4 (Berlin: Dietz, 1959), p. (29) Something Else, Collected Works, Vol. III, p. 288. 481. Tran. by Samuel Moore. (30) Friedrich von Wieser, Über das Verhältnis der Kosten zum Wert [On the Relation of Cost to (34) Henry George, Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Value], repr. in Gesammelte Abhandlungen (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1929 [1876]), pp. 377–404. Cf. his Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy (New York: D. Appleton, 1879). Social Economics (New York: Greenberg, 1927 [1914]), pp. 99–100. 232 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 233 from other exchangeable goods. This insight is formulated more clearly everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.’(38) Bastiat by modern economists: future utilisation possibilities, subjectively claims that the real choice is between two models of the state: one is that evaluated, determine the value of land, not its natural qualities, a concept it should do much, but then also has to take much; the other one is that difficult to quantify, at least in the absence of market exchanges.(35) the state should confine itself to a few tasks which would only require Thomas Malthus taught that population increased at a faster rate than moderate taxes. The third model, that the state should do much, while the means of subsistence so that eventually people would run out of keeping the tax burden light, is illusory. food. Historically, wars, famines and epidemics had brought population Which are the tasks to which the state should confine itself? Bastiat down to a sustainable level, but in modern times, Malthus suggested, discusses this question in The Law. Man has according to him a natural celibacy and austerity were the only feasible solutions.(36) His analysis right to life, liberty and property, and consequently a right to defend has been echoed by modern environmentalists. Bastiat, on the other those values, and the state should be ‘the collective organization of the hand, believes that people do not breed like rabbits; they are able to plan individual right of legitimate defense’. The state should ensure justice, their lives; and progress, not least technological innovation, will enable and leave it to individuals to promote fraternity. Justice, for Bastiat, is people to escape the Malthusian trap. Certainly, history seems to have best defined by its opposite, injustice. It is the absence of injustice, like proved him right. peace is the absence of war and freedom the absence of coercion. ‘The aim of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In reality it is not The Politics of Plunder justice that has its own existence, it is injustice. The one results from the absence of the other.’(39) But the law has become corrupt, Bastiat says. Time and again Bastiat stresses that we cannot expect to get something It is used to transfer assets from producers to others. This is the ‘legal for nothing. In his piece on ‘The State’ he recalls that people seem to plunder’ that he also speaks about in his parable of the broken window. expect everything from the state, at the same time as they demand tax There are, Bastiat claims, three alternatives in modern society. One is reductions. But there is no such thing as a bountiful and inexhaustible that the minority plunders the majority. This is what happens if only being, which has bread for every mouth, work for every arm, capital for a few have the right to participate in political decisions. An example all businesses, milk for children and wine for the elderly. People can only might be France in 1830–1848, during the reign of King Louis-Philippe. get what they want by their own work or that of others. ‘Man rejects pain The second case is when everyone plunders everyone else. This is and suffering,’ Bastiat writes. ‘And yet he is condemned by nature to the what can happen under universal franchise, if the voters are guided by suffering privation brings if he does not embark upon the pain of work. All unintelligent selfishness. An example might be France after the 1848 he has, therefore, is a choice between these two evils. How can he avoid revolution. The third alternative is that no one plunders anybody. This both? Up to now, he has only found and will only ever find one means, is what could happen if the voters would become enlightened and realise that is, to enjoy the work of others.’(37) On the basis of this observation, that they are also taxpayers and consumers. It is Bastiat’s aim to try and Bastiat gives a famous definition: The‘ state is the great fiction by which bring about this enlightenment through his writings. It is to reveal the real interests of the citizens and to expose the fallacies of those who want to seize their earnings, directly or indirectly.

(35) Carl Menger, Grundsätze der Volkswirthschaftslehre (Wien: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1871), pp. 145–148; Principles of Economics (Auburn AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007), pp. 166–169. (36) Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principles of Population (London: J. Johnson, 1798). (38) Ibid., p. 97. Italics in the original. (37) The State, Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 96. (39) The Law, Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 120. Italics in the original. 234 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 235

Bastiat’s argument that enforced redistribution achieved through public goods. But it would not follow that some other kinds of enforced taxation, regulation or trade restrictions is really plunder may seem redistribution could be justified, for example a monetary transfer from implausible. One crucial distinction between the highwayman on one group to another, simply on the basis of political bargaining. There the one hand and the tax collector and the customs officer, acting on it may be appropriate to speak of plunder. Moreover, even if some behalf of legislators, on the other hand is that there is not obviously any individuals may not strictly speaking deserve all of the income they enjoy intention to do wrong by legislators. Therefore their action does not in a free and competitive market, they may be entitled to it. ‘For what are seem as morally reprehensible as a plain robbery. Again, the distinction our faculties if not an extension of our personality, and what is property between legitimate and illegitimate functions of the state may not be as if not an extension of our faculties?’ Bastiat asks.(40) Why should some be clear as Bastiat assumes. Even if there may be general agreement that the entitled to the income of others, anyway? ‘If I use force to appropriate all state should provide public goods, people may disagree on what should the work of a man for my benefit, this man is my slave,’ Bastiat writes. ‘He count as a public good: the maintenance of a defence force and the police is also my slave if, while letting him work freely, I find a way through force may qualify, but what about education, or poverty relief? Is taxation to or guile to take possession of the fruit of his work.’(41) Again, enforced finance the provision of education or a safety net for the poor morally redistribution has some consequences which are not immediate or seen. equivalent to plunder? A third argument might be that the income For example, productive people such as professionals, entrepreneurs and people enjoy, even in a free and competitive market, with no restrictions venture capitalists will adjust their activities to the level of taxation that on trade, are not always the fruit of their labour: they may have been they confront, while unproductive and indolent people (and such people lucky in their choice of parents, or in their share of the talent pool, or in certainly exist) will discover opportunities to have resources transferred their investments; thus, they may not strictly speaking deserve income to them by government: A race might start between dwindling resources derived from such advantages. Perhaps it is therefore fair to expect and growing demands, where ultimately, ‘taxing more is to receive less,’ as these lucky people to transfer at least some of their undeserved gains to Bastiat puts it,(42) in anticipation of the Laffer Curve according to which others, and even to compel them to do so. Fourthly, while Bastiat may tax revenue will reach a maximum at a given tax rate, and then start to have a case regarding regulation and trade restrictions, one important fall when the tax rate is increased further.(43) difference between a robbery and taxation is that people to some extent Bastiat presents a theory of both harmony and conflict in society. decide themselves how much they pay in taxes: they can choose to switch In the marketplace, where people are pursuing their own interests and their efforts from taxed to untaxed channels, for example from work to freely exchanging goods and services, there is harmony. In the political leisure. They are however unprepared and helpless when faced with an arena, on the other hand, where people are also pursuing their own armed robber, not to mention the very unpleasant violence involved, or interests, there is conflict, because some want to appropriate and enjoy the threat of it. the work of others. Bastiat points out that the interventionists rely on In response to these objections, Bastiat could say that an action three premises, the apathy of the voters who do not realise their true should be judged by results, not only by intentions, and that it is precisely interests, the omnipotence of the state, ignoring all the unintended the task of a skilled economist to demonstrate the possible and likely results of government intervention. He could add that in the distinction (40) Ibid., p. 108. between enforced redistribution by government and plunder there might (41) Protectionism and Communism, Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 250. be a problem of demarcation, but not really of classification. It might be a (42) Peace and Freedom or the Republican Budget, Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 294. Italics in the original. matter of debate which activities of government could be justified, with (43) Arthur B. Laffer, The Laffer Curve: Past, Present, and Future,Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, some people accepting the provision of education and poverty relief as No. 1765 (June 2004). 236 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 237 consequences of government intervention, and the infallibility of the that suddenly two new groups are created by a sleight of hand, the legislators. The first premise can be changed, but the two other premises perpetrators, having now become criminals, and their moral guardians. are wrong, Bastiat claims. The state is not omnipotent, and the legislators are fallible. He criticises Rousseau and other political thinkers in France Bastiat’s Influence and Relevance for trying to set themselves above the masses. ‘Are the legislators and their agents not part of the human race? Do they think they are In the heyday of free trade and economic liberalism, in the latter half formed from a different clay from the rest of mankind?’(44) Under the of the nineteenth century, Bastiat was one of the most widely read and influence of ancient fables about omniscient legislators, they want to influential economists in the world. One of his disciples, Michel Che­ mould the masses. Bastiat quotes the French revolutionary Maximilien valier, negotiated with Bastiat’s old friend Richard Cobden a free trade Robespierre: ‘We have made a republic,’ Robespierre had said, ‘it now treaty between France and Great Britain, signed in January 1860 and remains for us to make republicans of everyone.’(45) Bonaparte, the usually called the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty. This was perhaps the apogee military dictator who replaced the French revolutionaries, shared this of the free trade movement in Europe.(47) Even the Catholic Church was idea with them, although he did not use terror to the same extent to favourably disposed towards Bastiat. In 1877, the future Pope Leo XIII achieve his aims. wrote in a pastoral letter that Bastiat had ‘clearly explained the many Bastiat’s ideal is the minimal state. Again, he does not think, any benefits that society brings to man; and that marvel is worthy of our more than, say, St. Thomas Aquinas that the state should shift some attention’.(48) resources from the protection of its citizens against injustice such as It is less well-known that in the nineteenth century Bastiat had a robberies, assaults and rapes to a fight against ‘victimless crimes’. The significant impact in the Nordic countries, reinforcing the strong existing examples of victimless crimes that he discusses include the production liberal tradition there. Economic Sophisms, Part I, was translated into and consumption of opium and alcohol, gluttony, luxurious clothing, Swedish already in 1846, and the two most prominent liberals in Sweden non-traditional educational practices, and ostentatious religious at the time, Lars Johan Hierta and Johan August Gripenstedt, were both practices. Other examples might be the use of various recreational drugs ardent disciples of Bastiat. Gripenstedt who had met Bastiat on a trip other than opium, such as cannabis, morphine, cocaine and heroin, and to France in 1850 had the opportunity to put theory into practice when commercial or non-traditional sex. Bastiat believes that each individual he was a key government minister in 1848–1866. It is no exaggeration has a natural right to produce or consume whatever he or she likes to say that Gripenstedt laid the foundations for Sweden’s prosperity in regardless of what other people think, provided that this activity does the following hundred years, introducing free trade, removing various not violate the right to life, liberty, and property of others. ‘Advise me, economic restrictions, reforming the financial system, and abolishing but do not impose anything on me. I will take the decision at my risk and guilds and other outdated practices. ‘Free trade is one of the main pillars peril; that is enough, and the intervention of the law would be tyranny in upon which human society and culture resides,’ he wrote in 1851.(49) In this instance.’(46) The government’s fight against victimless crimes is also 1865, under Gripenstedt’s leadership, Sweden became a partner to the futile: if there is demand, then there will be supply, with the difference

(47) Friedrich A. Hayek, Liberalism, New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and the History of Ideas (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 129. (44) The Law, Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 139. (48) Dean Russell, Frederic Bastiat: Ideas and Influence (Irvington-on-Hudson NY: The Foundation for (45) Frédéric Bastiat, To the Electors of the District of Saint-Sever, Collected Works, Vol. I, p. 362. He Economic Education, 1965), p. 140. quotes Robespierre’s words again in Baccalaureate and Socialism, Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 220. (49) Per T. Ohlsson, 100 år av tillväxt: Johan Gripenstedt och den liberala revolutionen [100 Years of (46) On Responsibility, Harmonies, Ch. XX, p. 505. Italics in the original. Economic Growth: Johan Gripenstedt and the Liberal Revolution] (Stockholm: Brombergs, 1985), p. 85. 238 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 239

Cobden-Chevalier Treaty. A leading Swedish economist, Count Gustaf Bastiat’s writings brought out by the Foundation for Economic Knut Hamilton, even baptised his son Bastiat.(50) In Denmark, Bastiat Edu­cation had a marked impact on a retired Hollywood actor, Ronald also had a significant influence on many economists and politicians,­ Reagan, who was in the 1950s employed by General Electric and travel­ for example Professors Carl Johan H. Kayser and Niels Christ­ian led around the United States defending economic freedom. In October Frederiksen, both of whom also were members of the Danish Parlia­ 1965, a conservative activist, Lee Edwards, spent a few days with Reagan, ment.(51) Another well-known Danish writer and politician, Fredrik­ while writing a profile of him. He had the opportunity to browse in Bajer, was also Bastiat’s disciple, publishing in 1870 a short ex­tract of Reagan’s large library at his home in Pacific Palisades and came across Economic Harmonies.(52) A pacifist, Bajer received the Nobel Peace books such as Hayek’s Road to Serfdom and Hazlitt’s Economics in One Prize in 1908. Even in tiny, remote Iceland, Bastiat was applauded.­ Lesson, and one book he had never read, The Law by Frédéric Bastiat. The first book to be published in Icelandic on economics, by Arn­ He was stunned. He had never read Bastiat. He opened the book. It ljotur Olafsson in 1880, was more or less a recapitulation of Bastiat’s was dog-eared and underlined. So were several other books in the Economic Harmonies, as the author stated in his foreword.(53) Olafsson library. Reagan was obviously a thoughtful conservative liberal (in the was member of the Icelandic Parliament for many years. European sense) who had arrived at his position the old-fashioned way, In the first half of the twentieth century, however, Bastiat was largely one book at a time. That night Edwards wrote in his notebook, ‘Presi­ forgotten. In the muddy trenches on the Western Front during the First dent Reagan?’(55) Indeed, Reagan was elected President in 1980. He World War, his optimism seemed strangely irrelevant, and in the Great often quoted Bastiat, for example in 1982, when he recalled Bastiat’s Depression most countries abandoned free trade. In his own country, comment that public funds seemed to belong to no one.(56) The British France, Bastiat was dismissed as an outdated ideologue. But during the Prime Minister in 1979–1990, Margaret Thatcher, had also read Bastiat’s Second World War Bastiat was rediscovered in the United States, by two works and occasionally referred to him, for example in 1978 when she businessmen in California, Raymond C. Hoiles and Leonard Read. They had quoted Bastiat’s observation that socialists contradicted themselves old translations of Bastiat’s works reprinted, and in 1946 Read moved to the when they said that people were too bad to govern them­selves: ‘Are not state of New York where he set up the Foundation for Economic Education the legislators and their agents part of the human race? Do they believe which did much to promote Bastiat’s ideas. The economic journalist Henry themselves moulded from another clay than the rest of mankind?’(57) Hazlitt wrote a readable best seller based on Bastiat’s parable of the broken Bastiat’s works are still highly relevant, for at least three reasons. First, window, Economics in One Lesson,(54) and in the spring of 1947 both Read and populists and demagogues have continued to present the arguments Hazlitt became founding members of Friedrich von Hayek’s Mont Pelerin against economic freedom that Bastiat exposed as fallacies. One of the Society, an international academy of liberal scholars. most eminent economists of the twentieth century, John Maynard Keynes, once suggested that government should tackle unemployment

(50) Eli F. Heckscher, A Survey of Economic Thought in Sweden, 1875–1950, Scandinavian Economic by burying goods and then digging them up again: History Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1953), p. 110. (51) Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, Classical Liberalism and Modern Political Economy in Denmark, Econ Journal Watch, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2015), pp. 400–431. (55) Lee Edwards: Just right: A Life in Pursuit of Liberty (Wilmington DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2017). (52) Fredrik Bajer, Kort vejledning ved foredrag over samfundshushåldning (politisk ekonomi) til brug ved folkehöjskoler [A Short Guide for Lectures on Political Economy, for Use in Public Schools] (56) Radio Address to the Nation on the Federal Budget, 22 May 1982, Public Papers of the Presidents (København: C. A. Reitzels forlag, 1870). of the United States: Ronald Reagan, January 1 to July 2, 1982 (Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1982), p. 665. (53) Arnljotur Olafsson, Audfraedi [The Science of Wealth] (Reykjavik: Hid islenska bokmenntafelag, 1880). (57) Margaret Thatcher, Speech to Conservative Central Council, Leicester 8 April 1978. https://www. margaretthatcher.org/document/103651 Thatcher quoted this passage by Bastiat in other speeches as (54) Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946). well. 240 Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 241

are not suddenly transformed into altruists when they enter the political If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, arena.(61) bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines Thirdly, Bastiat’s optimism is still needed. Neo-Malthusians predict which are then filled up to the surface with town disaster because population is supposed to be increasing too fast. In rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried 1968, for example, Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich wrote that ‘In the principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the 1970s the world will undergo famine—hundreds of millions of people are right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be now.’(62) He was wrong. No such disaster happened. The evidence shows no more unemployment.(58) that the rate of population increase is now declining, and has fallen below zero in some places, while new technology has increased the capacity One of Keynes’ disciples, Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Krugman, holds for food production enormously. The neo-Malthusians are convinced that sometimes wars, terror attacks or natural disasters can stimulate that economic growth is not sustainable in the long run. They do not the economy.(59) Despite the enormous success of free trade in the 75 seem to realise that economic growth usually means less rather than years since the end of the Second World War, economic nationalism more production because it consists in the discovery and development seems to be on the rise, whereas the parables of the broken window, the of new, cheaper and simpler ways of doing things. But in the possible candlemakers’ petition and Robinson Crusoe with the wooden plank panic brought about by such dire predictions economic freedom might well illustrate the benefits of economic freedom. be severely restricted, even if it is the precondition for such crucial In the second place, Bastiat’s model of government as the rapacious discovery and development. It is therefore still necessary for economic proponent of special interests seems not all that farfetched in modern liberals to try and make the invisible hand visible. democracies. Politics usually is not a high-minded fight against injustice; it is a bargaining process in which the participants try to advance their own interests. Elections can be, in the words of American journalist H. L. Mencken, ‘advance auctions of stolen goods’.(60) Bastiat may contribute to a more realistic picture of politics, like the one offered by James M. Buchanan and the Virginia School in economics which stresses that men

(58) John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (London: Macmillan, 1936), Bk. 3, Ch. 10, Sect. 6. (59) In his New York Times blog, Paul Krugman argued 14 September 2001 that the terror attack on New York 11 September, ‘—like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression—could even do some economic good.’ For example, ‘If people rush out to buy bottled water and canned goods, that will actually boost the economy.’ Reckonings; After the Horror, https:// www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/opinion/reckonings-after-the-horror.html Again, Krugman argued 15 March 2011 that the Fukushima nuclear disaster could stimulate the world economy. ‘And yes, this does mean that the nuclear catastrophe could end up being expansionary, if not for Japan then at least for the world as a whole. If this sounds crazy, well, liquidity-trap economics is like that — remember, World War II ended the Great Depression.’ Meltdown Macroeconomics, https://krugman.blogs. nytimes.com/2011/03/15/meltdown-macroeconomics/ (61) Cf. the chapter on Buchanan and his ideas in this book. (60) H. L. Mencken, Sham Battle, Baltimore Evening Sun 26 October 1936, repr. in On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956), p. 325. (62) Paul R. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), p. xi. 242 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) 243

Alexis de Tocqueville

(1805–1859)

hy did the American Revolution of 1776 succeed and the French Revolution of 1789 fail? This was the question which Wpreoccupied French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville his whole life. In sympathy with many of the ideals for which the French revolution­aries fought, but strongly repudiating both the Terror of 1793– 1794 and Bonaparte’s subsequent military dictatorship, he travelled to the United States of America in 1831 in search for answers. He presented his conclusions in a justly famous book, Democracy in America, where he described the fascinating, dynamic new society which was developing across the ocean and compared it with French society. America was a country without a king or an aristocracy, but where the passion for equal­ ity had not led to the elimination of liberty. The words of the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776 had resounded in Europe: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.’ Tocqueville was however not as interested in lofty announcements as in the institutions, traditions, practices, customs, habits and manners that A liberal aristocrat, de Tocqueville accepts democracy as inevitable, had served to maintain a relatively free and stable society in America, a but wants it to be restrained. Painting beacon of hope for those Europeans who wanted to escape oppression by Théodore Chassériaux. and misery. In the course of his comparative study of the United States 244 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 245 and France, he presented what could be called the ‘sociology of freedom’. first volumes ofDemocracy in America which were published as one He was also remarkably prescient about the future, predicting the 1848 book in early 1835, to great acclaim. His work made a huge impact in revolution in Paris a few weeks before it occurred, the Cold War between the United States. ‘The American could not understand how a stranger, the United States and the Russian Empire and the enervation and social after a residence among them of only a year, could, with such marvellous disintegration of certain groups within the welfare state. sagacity, master their institutions and manners; enter into the spirit of them; and exhibit, in a clear and logical form, what they themselves had, Tocqueville’s Life and Works till then, only vaguely apprehended.’(1) In 1835, Tocqueville married an Englishwoman, Mary Mottley, four years his senior. A year later, after Alexis Charles-Henri-Maurice Clérel de Tocqueville was born in the death of his mother, he took up residence at the old family seat of Paris on 29 June 1805, the youngest of three brothers. His mother, Tocqueville, near Cherbourg, in an amicable arrangement with his two Louise Madeleine Le Peletier de Rosanbo, was granddaughter of elder brothers. He did not however use his title of Baron. Neither did he the distinguished lawyer Guillaume-Chrétien Malesherbes who share his family’s reactionary views which he considered outdated and courageously had defended the hapless King Lewis XVI before the illusory. ‘When I entered life, aristocracy was dead and democracy as Convention in 1792 and who was later sent himself to the guillotine. yet unborn,’ he told his English translator, Henry Reeve. ‘My instinct, Indeed, Tocqueville’s parents had narrowly escaped execution during the therefore, could not lead me blindly either to the one or to the other. I Terror. His father, Hervé Clérel, Count of Tocqueville, had opposed both lived in a country which for forty years had tried everything, and settled the excesses of the Revolution and Bonaparte’s military dictatorship, but nothing. I was on my guard, therefore, against political illusions.’(2) became under the restored Bourbon kings after 1814 successively Prefect In the next few years Tocqueville worked on the third and fourth of Metz, Amiens and Versailles and a Peer of France. Upon finishing law volumes of Democracy in America which were published as one book in school in 1826, young Alexis travelled around Italy for almost a year 1840.(3) There the emphasis was not as much on the distinctive customs before being appointed assistant judge in Versailles where his father was and manners of the Americans as on the general lessons Europeans could now Prefect. In Versailles, he met another young nobleman, Gustave de learn from a society which seemed to combine equality and freedom. The Beaumont, who became a close and lifelong friend. When the Bourbon author told a friend that with the work he ‘did not want to do a portrait, king was deposed in 1830 and replaced by a relative, Louis-Philippe of but to present a mirror’.(4) In his Autobiography, English philosopher Orléans, Tocqueville unenthusiastically pledged allegiance to the new John Stuart Mill remarked that he had learned from Tocqueville that regime, but decided to travel to the United States to observe a new society the practical political activity of the individual citizen was ‘a necessary in the making. He and Beaumont managed to obtain a commission from protection against it degenerating into the only despotism of which, in the new government to study the American penal system and left for the modern world, there is real danger—the absolute rule of the head of America. They arrived in New York in May 1831 and travelled all over North America for nine months, busy observing American customs and manners and taking notes. (1) Gustave de Beaumont, Memoir of Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, Vol. I (London: Macmillan, 1861), p. 35. Most of Tocqueville’s works are accessible at the Upon returning to France in early 1832, Tocqueville and Beaumont website of Liberty Fund. duly delivered a report to the government about the penal system in (2) Letter to Henry Reeve, Paris 22 March 1837. Tocqueville, Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, Vol. II (London: Macmillan, 1861), p. 31. the United States. Tocqueville resumed his duties in Versailles, but a (3) Alexis de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, Vols. I–II (Paris: Gosselin, 1835 and 1840). year later he resigned in protest against Beaumont’s dismissal by the (4) The friend was Jean-Jacques Ampère. Editor’s Introduction, Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in government. Tocqueville devoted the next two years to writing the two America, tran. by James T. Schleifer, Vols. 1–4 (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2010), Vol. 1, p. cvii. 246 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 247

The American Constitution, signed in 1787, was based on the separation of powers. George Washington, President of the Constitutional Convention, stands beneath the flags. Benjamin Franklin sits in front of him, with Alexander Hamilton leaning on him, and James Madison at the same table. Painting by Howard Chandler Christie.

the executive over a congregation of isolated individuals, all equals but he argued for free trade and perhaps surprisingly also for the ongoing all slaves’.(5) colonisation of Algiers. He and his friend Gustave de Beaumont belonged In 1839, Tocqueville was elected from his home district to the to Parisian high society. ‘Gustave de Beaumont was as lively as he was Chamber of Deputies and became a member of the constitutional amiable; he had solid qualities of the heart and a vivacity of spirit that opposition. He found the Orléanist regime, dominated by bankers gave rise to a great deal of grace and gaiety. Tocqueville, in contrast, was and businessmen, dull and uninspiring, a feeling best summed up by cold, reserved, master of himself to the point of calculating his actions the poet Adolphe de Lamartine, also a deputy: ‘France is bored!’(6) In as well as his relationships.’(7) Tocqueville was elected to the French the Chamber, Tocqueville took a strong position against slavery, while Academy in 1841. In the next few years he watched with alarm the growing discontent in France, issuing a warning in a speech to the Chamber on 27

(5) John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1873). Collected Works, Vol. I, ed. by John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), p. 201. (6) The remark was made in speech in the Chamber of Deputies 10 January 1839. (7) Editor’s Introduction, Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, p. lv. 248 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 249

January 1848: ‘I believe that at the present moment we are slumbering populist and adventurer Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. Tocqueville was on a volcano.’(8) Four weeks later his fears were confirmed. After riots however elected to the National Assembly in 1849, and from June to in Paris, King Louis-Philippe was deposed, a provisional government October he served as Foreign Minister. In a conversation with President was formed, and the Second French Republic was founded. While Bonaparte during this period, Tocqueville said: ‘I will never serve you Tocqueville did not lament the fallen regime, he was worried about what in overthrowing the Republic, but I will gladly strive to assure you a would replace it, as ‘a thousand strange systems came issuing pell-mell great position in it.’(14) In December 1851, when the President seized from the minds of innovators, and spread among the troubled minds of power in a coup, Tocqueville was among those deputies who wanted the crowds’.(9) Elected to the Constituent Assembly, Tocqueville went to resist him with force. As a result, he was briefly imprisoned, and from his country seat to Paris when the Assembly convened in May. when he was released, he retired to his family estate where a bust of In the French capital he saw society cut into two: those who possessed his great-grandfather Malesherbes adorned his writing desk. The new nothing, united in a common greed, and those who possessed something, dictator introduced universal male suffrage and had his action ratified united in a common terror. There were no bonds, no sympathy, between in a referendum, and a year later, following another referendum, he these two great sections of society.(10) Tocqueville was less than proclaimed himself Emperor under the name of Napoleon III. His uncle impressed by most of the other deputies to the Constituent Assembly had been called Napoleon the Great, but the poet Victor Hugo, a fighting who ‘bore little resemblance to the men, so certain of their objects and so member of the National Assembly like Tocqueville, called the new well acquainted with the measures necessary to attain them, who sixty Emperor Napoleon the Small. In retirement, Tocqueville wrote a book years before, under Washington’s presidency, so successfully drew up about the French Revolution, The Old Regime and the Revolution.(15) The the American Constitution’.(11) first part was published in 1856. Suffering from tuberculosis, Tocqueville In the Constituent Assembly, Tocqueville unsuccessfully argued for did not finish the second part. He died on 16 April 1859. He and his wife indirect election of the president and a bicameral parliament. With a left no children. His Recollections about the eventful years of 1848 and sigh, he observed: ‘In France there is only one thing we can’t set up: that 1849 were published posthumously.(16) is, a free government; and only one institution we can’t destroy: that is centralisation.’(12) In these turbulent times, he advocated strict measures A Society Guided by Self-Interest to uphold law and order. He was convinced ‘that the only means which remained, after so violent a revolution, of saving liberty was to restrict When Alexis de Tocqueville arrived in the United States in 1831, the it’.(13) In the presidential elections of December 1848 he supported federation had existed for 42 years. In the preceding two centuries, General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac who had put down a rebellion in June, North America had been slowly settled by Europeans, many of them but the General was defeated by Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew, the trying to escape religious persecution or poverty at home. For them, this new country had been a shining ‘City upon a Hill’.(17) Eventually,

(8) Beaumont, Memoir, p. 55. (9) The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, tran. by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (New York: Macmillan, 1896), p. 98. (14) Ibid., p. 318. (10) Ibid., p. 132. (15) Alexis de Tocqueville, L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution (Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1856). (11) Ibid., p. 235. (16) Alexis de Tocqueville, Souvenirs (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1893). (12) Ibid., p. 238. (17) This term is derived from the parable of salt and light in the Sermon on the Mount. ‘You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.’ Matthew 5, 14. It was used in a famous (13) Ibid., p. 310. sermon by the Puritan John Winthrop in Southampton, on 21 March 1630. 250 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 251 thirteen colonies were founded on the Atlantic Coast, some named Americans pursued wealth. Soon after his arrival in the United States, after British monarchs: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Tocqueville wrote to his brother: ‘We are very truly in another world Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, here; political passions are only at the surface; the profound passion, the Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. When the only one that deeply moves the human heart, the passion of every day, British government tried to impose on the colonists taxation without is the acquisition of wealth, and there are a thousand ways to acquire it representation, they rose up and fought the War of Independence in without disturbing the State.’(19) What he also observes, however, is that 1775–1783, with the formal foundation of the United States on 4 July in America this pervasive materialism is held in check by strong religious 1776. A constitution for the new federation was drafted in 1787 and sentiments and a vibrant civic spirit which finds expression in all kinds ratified by the states in the next three years. In 1789, the government of associations, which in turn modifies and even enlightens the pursuit of the United States began operating, with George Washington as the of self-interest. The moral guidance which an aristocratic elite might country’s first President. The federation soon expanded: Vermont provide in a hierarchical society like France before the Revolution, is joined in 1790, Kentucky in 1792, Tennessee in 1796, and Ohio in 1803. in the egalitarian American society created by reciprocal relationships Under President Thomas Jefferson, in 1803 the United States purchased within religious communities and civic associations. Thus, the citizens from France the immense territory in the middle of the continent called are instructed in their true interests, as Tocqueville sees it, and given to Louisiana. A smaller state of the same name joined in 1812, Mississippi understand that, in order to take advantage of the good things of society, in 1817, Illinois in 1818, Alabama in 1819, Maine in 1820, and Missouri they have to submit to its burdens. Cooperation between individuals in 1821. The population of the United States, a little more than two could replace the authority of nobles, and the state could be sheltered million when independence was declared, had grown to thirteen from tyranny and from license.(20) million in 1830, whereas the population of France then was 31 million. Self-interest could be enlightened, or what Tocqueville calls ‘interest The first six presidents of the United States had been members of the well understood’, and the pursuit of this self-interest could serve the elites of Virginia and Massachusetts, landowners or lawyers, but when common good: Tocqueville arrived, General Andrew Jackson, a populist politician from Tennessee, had been President for three years. Interest well understood is a doctrine not very lofty, but Jackson might be President of the United States, but what Tocqueville clear and sure. It does not try to attain great objectives, soon noticed was how little politicians mattered in this new, vast but without too much effort it attains all those it targets. country. It seemed to be ruled by the invisible hand of the marketplace Since the doctrine is within reach of all minds, each (as Adam Smith would have said) rather than by anyone identified as man grasps it easily and retains it without difficulty. holding power. ‘What most strikes the European who travels across Accommodating itself marvelously to the weaknesses the United States is the absence of what among us we call government of men, it easily gains great dominion and it is not or administration,’ Tocqueville comments. ‘In America, you see written difficult for it to preserve that dominion, because the laws; you see their daily execution; everything is in motion around you, doctrine turns personal interest back against itself and the motor is nowhere to be seen. The hand that runs the social and, to direct passions, uses the incentive that excites machine escapes at every moment.’(18) Instead of seeking power, the

(19) Letter to Édouard de Tocqueville 28 May 1831. Editor’s Introduction, Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 1, p. lxvii. (18) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 1, p. 116. (20) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 1, p. 20. 252 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 253

them. The doctrine of interest well understood does not produce great devotions; but it suggests small sacrifices every day; by itself, it cannot make a man virtuous, but it forms a multitude of steady, temperate, moderate, farsighted citizens who have self control; and, if it does not lead directly to virtue by will, it imperceptibly draws closer to virtue by habits. If the doctrine of interest well understood came to dominate the moral world entirely, extraordinary virtues would undoubtedly be rarer. But I also think that then the coarsest depravities would be less common. The doctrine of interest well understood perhaps prevents some men from rising very far above the ordinary level of humanity; but a great number

of others who fall below encounter the doctrine and In the United States, Tocqueville cling to it. Consider a few individuals, it lowers them. found democracy restrained to talent more individuals with special by a vibrant public spirit and a (21) Envisage the species, it elevates it. flourishing civil society. Painting abilities should be able to cultivate and by George C. Bingham, The develop them than in an aristocratic society Verdict of the People. While Tocqueville clearly recognises the benefits to all produced where opportunities for self-development by the individual pursuit of self-interest, he also tries to identify its were mostly confined to a small elite.(24) For disadvantages. His conclusion is similar to that of Burke, that in a example, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was a true hero who did commercial society, unlike an aristocratic one, there will be a dearth of not give up when he saw his old world collapse. At the age of 59, he moved heroes. ‘But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, oeconomists, to America and built a new career: He had the courage of his convictions, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished and continued into old age to present arguments for his position, little for ever,’ Burke had famously exclaimed.(22) Perhaps what Tocqueville and affected by adversity. Consider Margaret Thatcher, a grocer’s daughter Burke have in mind are those men whom Aristotle called ‘magnanimous’. from Grantham who went to Oxford and became not only a chemist and They are great of mind and heart, proud and noble, rising above the a lawyer, but also Member of Parliament, Leader of the Conservative multitude.(23) Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for eleven years. I doubt that Tocqueville and Burke are right about this. Does the Strong-willed and hardworking, she certainly made the most out of her market order tend to lower extraordinary and outstanding people? considerable abilities, dwarfing her opponents in the Labour Party, such Are there fewer magnanimous individuals and heroes around than in as Michael Foot, a solicitor’s son, and Tony Benn, the Viscount Stansgate. the past? Certainly, in a commercial society where careers are open Again, look at American golfer Tiger Woods. The son of a war veteran of mixed ethnicity, he did not belong to any upper class, but his father

(21) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 3, pp. 921–922. (22) Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France,Select Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. 2 (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1999), p. 89. (24) Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (London: John Murray, 1859); Lawrence Reed, Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction (23) Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. IV, Ch. 3, 1123b. (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2016). 254 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 255 devoted much time and effort to training him, with the result that at a of 1776 were also outstanding individuals, heroes. ‘The Revolution in the young age he surpassed almost all his fellow players and became one of United States was produced by a mature and thoughtful taste for liberty, the most accomplished professional golfers of all times. and not by a vague and undefined instinct for independence. It was not Examples abound in modern times of sportsmen, artists and scientists based upon passions for disorder; on the contrary, it proceeded with love who have excelled, even if they came from humble backgrounds and of order and of legality.’(28) could not rely on royal favours, like, say, German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Divided and Limited Popular Sovereignty The best historical example may be a lad from Ohio, Thomas Alva Edison, who invented the phonograph, the film camera and the light bulb. He had In trying to solve the riddle why equality did not destroy liberty in the only a few months of formal education and supported himself as a young United States, Tocqueville points to the strict separation of powers man by selling candy and newspapers on trains, but eventually he became stipulated by the American Founding Fathers. ‘In this way they wanted a highly successful entrepreneur. As he remarked, ‘Genius is one percent to make authority great and the official small, so that society might inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.’(25) Surely, the Carnegie, continue to be well regulated and remain free.’(29) The United States are Rockefeller and Ford foundations bear witness to the magnanimity of ‘twenty-four small sovereign nations, that together form the great body their founders. Moreover, in modern society not only are there heroes of the Union’.(30) The bicameral Congress is a compromise between two who face extraordinary situations with courage and skill, such as the principles, the Senate being based on the idea of a federation of states New York firefighters on 11 September 2001, but also many everyday and the House of Representatives on the idea of popular sovereignty. heroes all around the world, for example devoted mothers. The division into two houses has the advantage that legislation is slowed Indeed, Tocqueville himself recognises that heroism has a place in down, each house serving as a court of appeal for the other one.(31) commercial society. He looks at an American obliged to live by his own While government is centralised in the United States, administration is efforts and driven by the desire for wealth, going boldly down all the decentralised, Tocqueville says, not least in the towns and the counties. paths that fortune opens to him. He ‘becomes indiscriminately seaman, The state has to be strong and speak with one voice; therefore some pioneer, manufacturer, farmer, bearing with an equal constancy the centralisation of government is necessary. But at the same time the work or the dangers attached to these different professions. There state has to be limited, because ‘it excels at preventing, not at doing.’(32) is something marvelous in the resources of his genius, and a sort of Decentralisation of administration encourages political participation heroism in his greediness for gain.’(26) Again, he describes an American by the citizens and their identification with their own country. ‘The navigator who went from Boston to buy tea in China, fighting against inhabitant becomes attached to each of the interests of his country as to the sea, against disease, against boredom. ‘I cannot express my thought his very own. He glories in the glory of the nation; in the successes that it better than saying that the Americans put a kind of heroism in their way achieves, he believes that he recognises his own work, and he rises with of doing commerce.’(27) According to Tocqueville, the American rebels

(28) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 1, p. 117. (25) Martin André Rosanoff, Edison in His Laboratory,Harper’s Monthly, Vol. 165 (September 1932), (29) Ibid., p. 117. p. 406. Cf. in general Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 2008). (30) Ibid., p. 98. (26) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 2, p. 560. (31) Ibid., p. 137. (27) Ibid., p. 641. (32) Ibid., p. 154. 256 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 257 them; he rejoices in the general prosperity that benefits him.’(33) large and the small sizes of nations’.(39) In Tocqueville’s memorable Tocqueville finds the independence of the judiciary in the United words, ‘The Union is free and happy like a small nation, glorious States an important additional safeguard of liberty. Judges have the right and strong like a large one.’(40) This is not least because of the many to base their decisions on the constitution rather than on laws coming intermediary institutions and associations in America, from the states from legislatures. ‘Enclosed within its limits, the power granted to the down to the counties and towns. ‘It is in the town, at the center of the American courts to rule on the unconstitutionality of laws still forms ordinary relations of life, that the desire for esteem, the need for real one of the most powerful barriers that has ever been raised against interests, the taste for power and notice are focused.’(41) The provincial the tyranny of political assemblies.’(34) Another restraint against the liberties the Americans enjoyed are crucial: ‘So the municipal bodies tyranny of political assemblies is the presidential veto which ‘forces the and county administrations form like so many hidden reefs that slow legislature to consider the question again; and this time, it can no longer or divide the tide of popular will.’(42) No less important is the role of decide except with a two-thirds majority of those voting’.(35) Tocqueville non-political associations in sustaining the civic spirit, in restraining thinks that the jury is also an institution which could serve to teach government and in keeping their members moral by non-obtrusive people civic virtue. ‘You must consider it as a free school, always open, monitoring. ‘In our time, freedom of association has become a where each juror comes to be instructed about his rights.’(36) Yet another necessary guarantee against the tyranny of the majority,’ Tocqueville restraint against absolute power is freedom of the press, although writes.(43) Such civic associations maintain informal order. They are Tocqueville hastens to add: ‘I love it much more from consideration of both democratic and conservative. Or, as American philosopher Leo the evils it prevents than for the good things that it does.’(37) Strauss somewhat ironically comments, ‘One of the most conservative Tocqueville makes interesting observations about the size of groups here calls itself Daughters of the American Revolution.’(44) nations. For him, ‘small nations have at all times been the cradle of Tocqueville’s point about civic associations seems as valid today as in political liberty’.(38) One reason is that in small nations society keeps his time. Churches, clubs, charitable organisations, philatelic societies, its eye on everything and that therefore the spirit of improvement gets neighbourhood watches, parents’ associations, bowling leagues, and the down to the smallest detail, as he puts it (in modern times we would Boy Scouts are some of the many examples. It is no coincidence that in perhaps speak of transparency facilitating reforms). Small nations are totalitarian societies such civic associations are viewed with suspicion also unlikely to waste their resources on the empty illusion of glory. and often even outlawed. But they suffer from their lack of strength. Therefore large states often The civic spirit is still strong in the United States. According to the succeed, where small states fail. But the American ‘federal system ‘World Giving Index’, citizens of the United States give much more to has been created to unite the various advantages that result from the charity per capita than any European nation. In Europe, the two most generous nations are the Irish and citizens of the United Kingdom.

(33) Ibid., p. 160. (39) Ibid., p. 260. (34) Ibid., p. 175. (40) Ibid., p. 263. (35) Ibid., p. 203. (41) Ibid., p. 112. (36) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 2, p. 448. (42) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 2, p. 429. (37) Ibid., p. 290. (43) Ibid., p. 307. (38) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 1, pp. 255–256. (44) Leo Strauss, Liberalism Ancient and Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. ix. 258 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 259

broadcasting and public safety. He shows that groups of individuals can form private associations, or clubs, to provide themselves with such ‘club goods’ which they can enjoy, while excluding non-members from their use.(46) Ostrom on the other hand deals with ‘common goods’. They are not easily excludable and they are rivalrous which means that their consumption by some makes them unavailable or less available to others. Examples might be mountain pastures in Iceland, fisheries in Indonesia and forests in Nepal. She shows how relatively small, local communities may develop rules about the utilisation of such resources in an economically efficient and sustainable way.(47) Tocqueville is an acute observer of American society, and many of his comments on it still seem relevant. Here I shall only mention a few features of American society that we can observe with him. First, visitors to the United States are struck by the strong sense of Tocqueville is worried that (45) The French are remarkably ungenerous. equality might destroy individuality and deep-rooted suspicion of power there. The principle Some civic associations in free societies traditional bonds between is universally accepted in the United States, as Tocqueville says, ‘that people and produce amoral, extend their activities to the well-being of isolated individuals, the the individual is the best as well as the only judge of his particular non-members. Clubs like Rotary, Lions, lonely crowd. Painting by interest and that society has the right to direct his actions only when Edward Hopper, Nighthawks. Kiwanis, and Junior Chamber did not exist in it feels harmed by them, or when it needs to call for his support’. In Tocqueville’s time, but they well illustrate his the second place, visitors notice, like Tocqueville, the restlessness point: they tend to channel the energy of hard-working and occasionally of Americans, and their willingness to relocate whenever they think greedy businessmen or professionals into activities such as collecting it would be to their advantage. ‘In America,’ Tocqueville remarks, money for medical equipment in a local hospital, or for books to the local ‘society seems to live from day to day, like an army in the field.’(48) library, or for student scholarships. These clubs moderate the ambitions He notices, like we do today, that Americans always seem to be in a of their members, fulfil their desire for social recognition and are venues hurry. He explains: ‘The man who has confined his heart solely to the of self-improvement. Tocqueville’s argument about civic associations pursuit of the goods of this world is always in a hurry, for he has only a has been further strengthened by the research of James M. Buchanan and limited time to find them, to take hold of them and to enjoy them.’(49) Elinor Ostrom, both of them Nobel Laureates in economics. They discuss (This can be put in modern terms: Opportunity costs are high, because goods which are in between purely public goods like defence and purely private goods like pieces of manufactured cloth. Buchanan analyses ‘club goods’. They are excludable and non-rivalrous which means that their consumption by some does not significantly lessen the possibilities (46) James M. Buchanan, An Economic Theory of Clubs, Economica, New Series, Vol. 32, No. 125 of others to consume them. Examples might be local television (1965), pp. 1–14. (47) Elinor Ostrom, Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems, American Economic Review, Vol. 100 (2010), pp. 641–672.

(45) CAF World Giving Index 2018. A Global View of Giving Trends (London: Charities Aid Foundation, (48) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 2, p. 331. 2018). https://www.cafonline.org (49) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 3, p. 944. 260 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 261 opportunities are plentiful.)(50) Again, when I travel in the United back into barbarism; a thousand particular causes, of States, I see the same conformity without uniformity that Tocqueville which I have been able to show only the principal ones, described almost two hundred years ago. The Americans ‘love order, had to concentrate the American mind in a singular without which business cannot prosper’.(51) But I would add, and way in the concern for purely material things. The emphasise, that this order is for facilitating individual choices, not for passions, needs, education, circumstances, everything replacing them. It is about providing the road, not determining the seems in fact to combine to bend the inhabitant of the direction. Fourthly, another prevalent characteristic of the Americans United States toward the earth. Religion alone makes is that they seem to believe that all problems have solutions. There is him, from time to time, turn a fleeting and distracted a strong self-corrective element built into their emphasis on problems gaze toward heaven.(53) and solutions. Fifthly, Americans are much less interested in your history than in in your capacities. They do not ask wherefrom you are, However, the United States may not have been as exceptional as but what you can contribute. Sixthly, visitors cannot but perceive the Tocqueville thought. It is sometimes called ‘the first new nation’.(54) patriotism prevalent or even rampant in American society. The tacit In fact Iceland was the first new country from a European point assumption everywhere is that the United States is the best country of view, facing some of the same challenges as the thirteen British in the world. The Americans are still as proud of their country as they colonies in North America that eventually rebelled and formed a were in Tocqueville’s day when he, exasperated, wrote to his mother: federation. On this remote, windswept island in the North Atlantic ‘These people seem to me to stink of national pride; it pokes through Ocean, partly as a result of the distance from the continent, a unique all of their politeness.’(52) system of laws without government, let alone kings and aristocrats, Indeed, Tocqueville is the originator of what has since been called arose in the Commonwealth period.(55) The three new Anglo-Saxon ‘American exceptionalism’. This is the idea that there is something countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (which did not exist as unique about the United States: independent countries in Tocqueville’s time), also share some features with the United States, and certainly they have been more or less as So the situation of the Americans is entirely free as the United States. exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic Nevertheless, there is something special about the United States, people will ever be put in the same situation. Their if only in terms of its great historical impact, its size and its might and entirely Puritan origin, their uniquely commercial because it was a frontier society. When Tocqueville looks around the habits, even the country that they inhabit and that world, he sees only one other great frontier society, the Russian Empire, seems to divert their intelligence from the study of the which had in the preceding century expanded south to the Black Sea and sciences, letters and the arts; the proximity of Europe, the Caucasus and east through Siberia and over the Bering Strait all the that allows them not to study them without falling way to North America:

(50) This insight is developed by Swedish economist Staffan Burenstam Linder,Den rastlösa välfärdsmänniskan: tidsbrist i överflöd [Restless Because Prosperous: Time Shortage in Abundance] (53) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 3, p. 768. (Stockholm: Norstedts Akademiska Förlag, 1969). (54) Seymor Martin Lipset, The First New Nation: The United States in Historical and Comparative (51) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 2, p. 463. Perspective (New York: Basic Books, 1963). (52) Letter to Tocqueville’s mother, the Countess de Tocqueville, 26 April 1831. In his edition of (55) Richard F. Tomasson, Iceland: The First New Society, with an intro. by Seymor M. Lipset Tocqueville’s works, Beaumont left out this sentence! Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 2, p. 388n. (Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1980). 262 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 263

Today there are two great peoples on earth who, starting from different points, seem to advance toward the same goal: these are the Russians and the Anglo-Americans. Both grew up in obscurity; and while the attention of men was occupied elsewhere, they suddenly took their place in the first rank of nations, and the world learned of their birth and their greatness nearly at the same time. All other peoples seem to have almost reached the limits drawn by nature, and have nothing more to do except maintain themselves; but these two are growing. All the others have stopped or move ahead only with a thousand efforts; these two alone walk with an easy and rapid stride along a path whose limit cannot yet be seen. The American struggles against obstacles that nature opposes to him; the Russian is grappling with men. The one combats the wilderness and barbarism; the other, civilisation clothed in all its arms. Consequently the conquests of the American are made with the farmer’s plough, those of the Russian with the soldier’s sword. To reach his goal the first relies on personal interest, and, without directing them, allows the strength and reason of individuals to operate. The second in a way concentrates all the power of society in one man. The one has as principal means of action liberty; the other, servitude. Their point of departure is different, their paths are varied; nonetheless, each one of them seems called by a secret design of Providence to hold in its hands one day the destinies of half the world.(56)

Tocqueville is remarkably prescient. After the Second World War, where the Soviet Union, dominated by Russia, and the United States were allies, a Cold War broke out between them. As Tocqueville anticipates, it was Civic associations like Boy Scouts not only a struggle between two superpowers: it was a war of ideas, with tend to civilise people and make them into good citizens and patriots. Illustration by Norman Rockwell.

(56) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 2, p. 656. 264 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 265 the plough pitted against the sword, liberty against servitude. The Cold imitate America. She has to rely on her own civic spirit. War only ended with the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Tocqueville is certainly right about the perils of slavish imitation. its satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989–1991. There is great difference over the last two centuries between the relative success of the two North American countries, the United States and Democracy and Socialism Canada, on the one hand and the general failure of Latin American countries on the other hand, despite the fact that almost all of them Tocqueville accepts democracy, or popular sovereignty, but hopes that it adopted written constitutions quite similar to that of the United States. does not lead to equality in servitude. Therefore the lessons to be learned These outcomes illustrate how little can be achieved by importing the from the United States are important for Frenchmen and other Europeans. letter without the spirit that gives it life, as Tocqueville would put it. ‘There is a country in the world where the great social revolution that I Indeed, revolutions from above—such as attempts to impose Western am speaking about seems more or less to have reached its natural limits; it principles on a resistant population—are likely to fail. In the 1970s, came about there in a simple and easy way, or rather it can be said that this the Shah of Iran sought to modernise his country, but ended up losing country sees the results of the democratic revolution that is taking place power. It is true that the modernisation of Japan during the Meiji era and among us, without having had the revolution itself.’(57) However, these of Turkey under Mustafa Kemal seemed to succeed, but Japan became lessons cannot be applied uncritically on distant shores. Each country has an aggressive expansionist power in the 1930s, and a stable, liberal her own history, soul, nature, conditions, unique features: democracy has not emerged in Turkey. Where modernisation has been somewhat successful, as in Taiwan and South Korea after the Second My goal has been to show, by the example of America, World War, it has been because historical circumstances have enabled that laws and above all mores could allow a democratic governments to protect private property, maintain law and order and people to remain free. I am, moreover, very far promote trade. from believing that we must follow the example What Tocqueville fears is that democracy will become the tyranny that American democracy has given and imitate the of the majority or rather of those who speak in the name of the majority. means that it used to attain the goal of its efforts; He finds detestable the maxim that the majority has a right to do for I am not unaware of the influence exercised by anything, but yet he considers the will of the majority to be the source of the nature of the country and antecedent facts on all power. How does he resolve this paradox? He invokes a similar idea political constitutions, and I would regard it as a great as Burke who had spoken about a social contract or partnership ‘not misfortune for humankind if liberty, in all places, had only between those who are living, but between those who are living, to occur with the same features.(58) those who are dead, and those who are to be born’.(59) Tocqueville says: ‘So when I refuse to obey an unjust law, I am not denying the right of What France can learn from America, according to Tocqueville, is to the majority to command; I am only appealing from the sovereignty of introduce stricter separation of powers and encourage intermediary the people to the sovereignty of the human race.’(60) But Tocqueville institutions, between the state and the individuals. But France cannot is first and foremost a champion of liberty. ‘Passions are attributed to

(57) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 1, pp. 26–27. (59) Edmund Burke, Reflections,Select Works, Vol. II, p. 192–193. (58) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 3, pp. 512–513. (60) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 2, p. 410. 266 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 267

He foresees a struggle about property:

Before long, the political struggle will be restricted to those who have and those who have not; property will form the great field of battle; and the principal political questions will turn upon the more or less important modifications to be introduced into the rights of landlords.(62)

In a speech to the Constituent Assembly on 12 September 1848, Tocqueville refuses to accept socialism as a logical outcome of the French Revolution:

And after this great Revolution, is the result to be that

Tocqueville, seated far society which the socialists offer us, a formal, regimented me where I have only opinions,’ he wrote in left, was a member of a and closed society where the State has charge of all, constitutional commission 1837, ‘or rather I have but one opinion, an set up by the National where the individual counts for nothing, where the enthusiasm for liberty and for the dignity of Assembly in 1851. Another community masses to itself all power, all life, where the member, General Louis- (61) the human race.’ Eugène Cavaignac, is end assigned to man is solely his material welfare—this The two political ideas on the ascendancy seated far right. society where the very air is stifling and where light barely in the nineteenth century were democracy penetrates? Is it to be for this society of bees and beavers, and socialism. While Tocqueville regards democracy as being inevitable for this society, more for skilled animals than for free and and desirable, if properly implemented and restrained, he rejects civilized men, that the French Revolution took place? socialism as being both undesirable and impractical. But he does not underestimate its appeal. In October 1847, he drafts a manifesto for a He contrasts socialism with democracy: group of his allies in the Chamber of Deputies: Democracy extends the sphere of personal independence; The French Revolution, which abolished all privileges socialism confines it. Democracy values each man at and destroyed all exclusive rights, has allowed one to his highest; socialism makes of each man an agent, remain, that of landed property. Let not the landlords an instrument, a number. Democracy and socialism deceive themselves as to the strength of their have but one thing in common—equality. But note position, nor think that the rights of property form an well the difference. Democracy aims at equality in insurmountable barrier because they have not as yet liberty. Socialism desires equality in constraint and in been surmounted; for our times are unlike any others. servitude.(63)

(61) Letter to Henry Reeve, Paris 22 March 1837. Tocqueville, Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de (62) Tocqueville, Recollections, p. 13. Tocqueville, Vol. II (London: Macmillan, 1861), pp. 30–31. (63) The speech is reproduced in Tocqueville on Socialism, tran. by Ronald Hamowy, New Individualist Review, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1961), pp. 18–23. 268 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 269

In his Old Regime and the Revolution, Tocqueville also points out that The difference is that Tocqueville proposes various remedies against the socialism, or the demand for common property, is by no means new. social and moral disintegration that he fears, whereas Marx wanted to For example, Lewis XIV issued an edict by which he declared all land in overthrow the whole system. France public property, only temporarily granted to actual holders. ‘It Tocqueville also discusses what would become the concept of was the mother of modern socialism, which thus, strange to say, seems to worker alienation in Marx. He shares Adam Smith’s worries about have been the offspring of royal despotism.’(64) the enervating consequences of division of labour, however desirable Ironically, the staunch anti-socialist Tocqueville may have had some it might be economically. ‘What should you expect from a man who influence on the most influential socialist thinker of the nineteenth century, has used twenty years of his life making pinheads?’ Life becomes a Karl Marx.(65) The ideas found in Tocqueville’s writings of an inevitable deadening routine, the worker is turned into a mindless machine. ‘In and irreversible historical movement towards equality and of class conflict, a word, he no longer belongs to himself, but to the profession that first between the aristocracy and the middle class and then between men he chose,’ Tocqueville comments.(67) Marx would have said that the of property and the proletariat, both play a major role in Marxism. Some worker had lost his freedom; he was being controlled by material goods passages in the Communist Manifesto also seem to echo Tocqueville’s instead of controlling them. Tocqueville makes another observation apprehensions about the moral effects of commercial society: which would become one of the pillars of the Marxian system. It is about the difference in bargaining power between the employer and The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper workers. ‘If by common agreement they refuse work, the master, who hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic is a rich man, can easily wait, without ruining himself, until necessity relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley leads them back to him; but they must work every day in order to live, feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors’, for they have hardly any other property except their hands,’ Tocqueville and has left remaining no other nexus between man writes.(68) For Marx, it was crucial that the workers had no reserve and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash funds and that the employer could therefore force down their wages to payment’. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies the subsistence level. of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, There was a soft socialism however which could be even more of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of dangerous than the hard socialism Tocqueville encountered in the egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth French Constituent Assembly. In a famous passage he tries to imagine into exchange value, and in place of the numberless what it would look like: indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for I see an innumerable crowd of similar and equal men exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, who spin around restlessly, in order to gain small and it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each exploitation.(66) one of them, withdrawn apart, is like a stranger to the

(64) Tocqueville, Old Regime, p. 229. (Berlin: Dietz, 1959), pp. 464–465. Tran. by Samuel Moore. (65) Marx and Engels refer twice to Tocqueville (and his friend Beaumont), in Zur Judenfrage (1844), Werke, Vol. 1 (Berlin: Dietz, 1956), p. 362, and in Die heilige Familie (1845). Werke, Vol. 2 (Berlin: Dietz, (67) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 3, p. 982. 1962), p. 198. (68) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol 4, p. 1029. (66) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848), Werke, Vol. 4 270 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 271

destiny of all the others; his children and his particular Swedish conservative liberalism of Lawspeaker Torgny (in the interpretation friends form for him the entire human species; as for the of Snorri Sturluson), Anders Chydenius and Johan August Gripenstedt. remainder of his fellow citizens, he is next to them, but he There was a realisation that Sweden was not prosperous because taxes were does not see them; he touches them without feeling them; high, but that taxes were high because Sweden was prosperous, and that she he exists only in himself and for himself alone, and if he was prosperous as a result of Gripenstedt’s comprehensive liberal reforms still has a family, you can say that at least he no longer in the nineteenth century, and the preservation, despite social democratic has a country.—Above those men arises an immense and hegemony, of the rule of law and of free trade. tutelary power that alone takes charge of assuring their Tocqueville’s vision probably does not apply to any society as a whole, enjoyment and of looking after their fate. It is absolute, but it may be relevant in some social sectors, for example among the detailed, regular, far-sighted and mild. It would resemble recipients of welfare benefits on the one hand and in the academy on the paternal power if, like it, it had as a goal to prepare men other hand. The recipients of welfare benefits may become enervated for manhood; but on the contrary it seeks only to fix them and isolated as a consequence of their situation; they may lose their self- irrevocably in childhood; it likes the citizens to enjoy respect and passively accept intrusions by government into their lives. themselves, provided that they think only about enjoying While the academics may not have lost their self-respect, and may even themselves. It works willingly for their happiness; but it have too much of it, there has been an unmistakable trend in recent wants to be the unique agent for it and the sole arbiter; times away from the conception of science as the free competition of it attends to their security, provides for their needs, ideas and towards not only conformity, but also uniformity. If your facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, views are not ‘politically correct’, you will find it hard to get tenure at directs their industry, settles their estates, divides their a university; and in the unlikely case that you get tenure, perhaps by inheritances; how can it not remove entirely from them oversight, you will not get your unorthodox papers published in peer- the trouble to think and the difficulty of living?(69) reviewed academic journals—arguing, say, that development aid tends to become aid without development; or that climate change must be partly This may be a restatement of the ‘Paradox of the Contented Slave’. Is a natural rather than solely anthropogenic; or that the gender wage gap slave who accepts his condition really unfree? can be explained mostly by different choices made by the sexes. At the Some people have seen the modern welfare state as such ‘an immense same time, various kinds of nonsense will be published in these journals and tutelary power’, for example Sweden.(70) But even if there may be a if it is ‘politically correct’.(71) But since a publication record is the most grain of truth in this, it is not the whole story. Tocqueville was speculating common criterion of academic success, you will become an outsider about a possibility, not predicting a coming reality. In Sweden certainly even if you have tenure. Sooner or later the students, encouraged by your there seemed to be a strong consensus after the Second World War for an colleagues, will turn on you which will give your employer a pretext to extended role of government. The few voices raised against it were relegated to the wilderness. But when the Swedish Social Democrats were perceived as going too far in the late 1970s, there was a swing back to the traditional (71) Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, submitted in 1996 a paper to a journal of ‘postmodern cultural studies’. Intentionally, the paper was full of nonsense about quantum gravity being a social and linguistic construct. The paper was accepted and published. In 2017–2018 a team of three authors, James A. Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, and Helen Pluckrose, submitted bogus papers to academic journals in cultural, queer, race, gender and fat studies, or in what the authors call ‘grievance (69) Ibid., pp. 1249–1250. studies’. Some were accepted and published, even if they included arguments that the penis is a social construct, that dogs engage in rape culture and that men may reduce their transphobia by inserting sex (70) Roland Huntford, The New Totalitarians (London: Allen Lane, 1971). toys into their ani. 272 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 273 dismiss you with a severance payment. You need not fear an execution squad or a labour camp, but you feel strong peer pressure to which most academics, at least in the social sciences, will succumb.

The French Revolution

The main thesis of Tocqueville’s book about the French Revolution, supported by extensive archival research, is that it was a continuation of policies pursued by absolute kings. The author finds ‘the roots of our modern society deeply imbedded in the old soil’.(72) For centuries, kings had been scaling down the many intermediate institutions and associations of France, and tearing apart the various bonds and attachments between their subjects, turning them into a mass of equals. ‘In France, kings showed themselves to be the most active and most constant of levellers.’(73) Tocqueville teaches that the Revolution was the On 10 August 1792 the Paris adaptation of the political state to the social state, of the letter to the spirit. mob stormed the Tuileries Tocqueville is however not a fatalist about Palace where the royal family ‘The Revolution effected suddenly, by a convulsive and sudden effort, resided, killing many of the centralisation or equality. ‘The nations of without transition, precautions, or pity, what would have been gradually king’s guards. Tocqueville’s today cannot make conditions among them (74) father, one of the guards, affected by time had it never occurred.’ Indeed, paradoxically, the narrowly escaped. Painting not be equal; but it depends on them whether French Revolution was neither French nor a Revolution.(75) It was not by Jacques Bertaux. equality leads them to servitude or liberty, to French, because the trend towards equality, and popular sovereignty, enlightenment or barbarism, to prosperity and centralisation, was an international one. It was not a Revolution or misery.’(77) While equality was inevitable, the great transformation because it did not bring about a radical transformation of society, as of French society could have been affected gradually and peacefully, as this transformation had already been taking place over centuries. The the examples of the 1688 Glorious Revolution in Great Britain and the revolutionaries had simply continued the centralisation implemented 1776 American Revolution suggested. It was for example a huge mistake, by kings. ‘I am willing to admit that centralisation was a noble conquest, Tocqueville thinks, to destroy the aristocracy instead of subjecting it and that Europe envies us its possession; but I deny that it was a conquest to the law.(78) Tocqueville also criticises the two types of people who of the Revolution. It was, on the contrary, a feature of the old regime, and, stood out during the French Revolution, the would-be despots and I may add, the only one which outlived the Revolution.’(76) the dreamers. ‘Despots acknowledge that liberty is an excellent thing; but they want it all for themselves, and maintain that the rest of the world is unworthy of it,’(79) he exclaims. The philosophers and writers

(72) Tocqueville, Old Regime, p. iv. (73) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 1, p. 8. (74) Tocqueville, Old Regime, p. 37. (77) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 4, p. 1285. (75) Editor’s Introduction, Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 1, p. cvii. (78) Tocqueville, Old Regime, p. 140. (76) Tocqueville, Old Regime, p. 50. (79) Ibid., p. xi. 274 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 275 prominent before the Revolution are also found wanting. ‘These writers The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is were naturally tempted to indulge unreservedly in abstract and general almost always an improvement on its immediate theories of government. They had no practical acquaintance with the predecessor, and experience teaches that the most subject; their ardours were undamped by actual experience; they knew critical moment for bad governments is the one which of no existing facts which stood in the way of desirable reforms; they witnesses their first steps toward reform. A sovereign were ignorant of the dangers inseparable from the most necessary who seeks to relieve his subjects after a long period revolutions, and dreamed of none.’(80) They all assumed, Tocqueville of oppression is lost, unless he be a man of great remarks, that the powers of the state ought to be unlimited, and that the genius.(83) only thing needed was to persuade it to use them wisely.(81) In his reflections about revolutions, Tocqueville presents what has The example Tocqueville has in mind is of course the reign of Lewis XVI, been called ‘Tocqueville’s Paradox’. It is that regimes are most vulnerable a much more progressive king than his two predecessors and namesakes, when they are reforming. One reason for this is that thereby they are Lewis XIV and Lewis XV. drawing attention to existing ills which may be becoming an exception History provides many other examples of ‘Tocqueville’s Paradox’. It rather than the rule: was after the Brazilian Emperor had in 1888 abolished slavery, without compensation, that he was deposed. He had lost one constituency, the The hatred that men bring to privilege increases as slave-owning landowners, without gaining another. Perhaps more privileges become rarer and smaller, so that you would importantly, he had lost the will to rule, and this was perceived by say that democratic passions become more inflamed ambitious military officers seeking to replace him. Again, from 1906 at the very time when they find the least sustenance. the Russian tsarist regime under the firm leadership of Pyotr Stolypin I have already given the reason for this phenomenon. implemented many reforms which might have saved it if Stolypin had No inequality, however great, offends the eye when not been assassinated in 1911. The Shah of Iran in the 1970s feebly tried to all conditions are unequal; while the smallest modernise and liberalise his country after decades of authoritarian rule, dissimilarity seems shocking amid general uniformity; but when his opponents felt that they had little to fear, he was overthrown. the sight of it becomes more unbearable as uniformity I had a memorable conversation about this with Sir Geoffrey Arthur, the is more complete. So it is natural that love of equality Master of my college, Pembroke, in the autumn of 1981, less than three grows constantly with equality itself; by satisfying it, years after the Shah had lost power. Sir Geoffrey had been the last British you develop it.(82) Resident in the Persian Gulf states and knew the Shah well. He said: ‘The problem was that the Shah was unwilling to use force. He should have The journey from a worse to a better situation is fraught with dangers, had 10,000 people shot, and if that would not have been sufficient, he not least because expectations have been raised and uncertainty should have had 20,000 people shot.’ I was stunned by this exclamation, created: but perhaps the Master had a point: The willingness to reform possibly reveals a weakness which subsequently may be exploited by elements hungry for power. Certainly the Iranians went out of the frying pan into

(80) Ibid., pp. 172–173. (81) Ibid., p. 91. (82) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 4, p. 1203. (83) Tocqueville, Old Regime, p. 214. 276 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 277 the fire when the Islamic clerics seized power. A more recent example government; over it a single agent, commissioned to might be Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempts to reform the Soviet Union from perform all acts without consulting his principals: above. He alienated his own supporters at the same time as he raised the to control him, a public sense of right and wrong, expectations of those who opposed communism. When the oppressed destitute of organs for its expression; to check peoples of Central and Eastern Europe realised that he was reluctant him, revolutions, not laws; the agent being de jure to use force to maintain communist rule, they rose up: The Berlin Wall a subordinate agent, in fact a master: such was the fell in a spectacular way in 1989, and with it the communist regime of plan.(85) East Germany; the three Baltic countries reaffirmed their independence, having been occupied by the Soviet Army since 1940 (with a brief Nazi Thirdly, Tocqueville and Burke share a deep distrust of abstract interlude), while many other countries followed suit. Perhaps the speculations. Fourthly, both Tocqueville and Burke believe that religion leadership of the Chinese Communist Party had observed ‘Tocqueville’s is necessary for a stable order. ‘When religion is destroyed among a Paradox’ and therefore used brute force in June 1989 to bring down people, doubt takes hold of the highest portions of the intellect and half the nascent democratic movement in China, after extensive economic paralyses all the others,’ Tocqueville writes. ‘Such a state cannot fail to reforms in the preceding decade. enervate souls; it slackens the motivating forces of will and prepares Even if Tocqueville criticises Burke’s interpretation of the French citizens for servitude. Then not only does it happen that the latter allow Revolution, the political lessons the two thinkers draw from this their liberty to be taken, but they often give it up.’(86) Unlike Burke, momentous event are in many ways similar.(84) First, while Tocqueville Tocqueville however wants the separation of state and church, for the is ambivalent about equality and Burke almost hostile to it, neither of sake of both. them supports a return to an aristocratic regime. In the second place, A fifth similarity between Tocqueville and Burke is that they they both favour private property rights and free trade, although they both teach that some traditions and principles have to be accepted are critical of what they regard as excessive materialism in commercial on authority. Burke speaks about cherishing ‘prejudices’, whereas society. Burke speaks disparagingly about ‘sophisters, economists and Tocqueville thinks that man cannot do without some dogmatic beliefs, calculators’, and Tocqueville condemns the French economists of the or opinions that he receives on trust. ‘If each person undertook to eighteenth century: form all his opinions himself and to pursue truth in isolation, along paths opened up by himself alone, it is improbable that a great number They were quite familiar with the form of tyranny of men would ever unite together in any common belief.’(87) He goes which we call democratic despotism, and which had even further: ‘It is true that every man who receives an opinion on the not been conceived in the Middle Ages. No more word of others puts his mind into slavery; but it is a salutary servitude social hierarchies, no distinctions of class or rank; a that allows making a good use of liberty.’(88) Yet another similarity people consisting of individuals entirely equal, and between Tocqueville and Burke is that both worry about increasing as nearly alike as possible; this body acknowledged as the only legitimate sovereign, but carefully deprived

of the means of directing or even superintending the (85) Tocqueville, The Old Regime, p. 198. (86) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 3, p. 745. (87) Ibid., p. 712. (84) Sanford Lakoff, Tocqueville, Burke, and the Origins of Liberal Conservatism,The Review of Politics, Vol. 60, No. 3 (1998), pp. 435-464. (88) Ibid., pp. 715–716. 278 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 279

between the immediate and visible consequences of human actions and their invisible consequences in the long run:

The vices and weaknesses of the government of democracy are easily seen; they are demonstrated by obvious facts, while its salutary influence is exerted in an imperceptible and, so to speak, hidden way. Its drawbacks are striking at first sight, but its qualities are revealed only in the long run.(89)

Tocqueville himself may have provided an explanation of his conspicuous silence about these two liberals: when he was writing, he consciously avoided reading books on the same topics.(90) He preferred to reach

Château de Tocqueville his own conclusions rather than rely on previous authors. Another mediocrity if popular taste is to dominate in Normandy where explanation is that Constant and Bastiat both supported the Orléanist Tocqueville wrote about the society. Finally, Tocqueville and Burke French Revolution. It was, he regime, whereas Tocqueville considered that regime to be vulgar, share a fear of mob rule or the tyranny of held, the continuation of a mediocre, narrow-minded and corrupt and may therefore not have despotic tradition, the People the majority. just replacing the King.. cared to be seen as their ally. It is likely, moreover, that the aristocratic Tocqueville’s ideas are also closely and aloof moralist Tocqueville looked with some disdain on Constant, related to those of two other French a notorious womaniser and gambler, and also, albeit for different conservative liberals, Benjamin Constant and Frédéric Bastiat. This is reasons, on Bastiat who was both provincial and middle-class. Certainly, not surprising. They were responding to the same events and situations: in his style Bastiat is different from Tocqueville. Bastiat is polemical, Constant and Tocqueville to the Terror and the subsequent military Tocqueville rhetorical; the former is sarcastic, the latter ironic; one is dictatorship, Bastiat and Tocqueville to the extension of government forceful, the other one subtle. power in the name of the people. Strangely, though, Tocqueville Nevertheless, all three, Constant, Bastiat and Tocqueville, are nowhere refers to these two thinkers, although he must have known remarkable thinkers. While Bastiat skilfully exposes the folly of economic of them and their works. Constant was famous in France as ‘the first interventionism, Constant and Tocqueville develop their trenchant liberal’, and there are many similarities between his thought and that of analyses of the French Revolution into a conservative liberalism which Tocqueville. Their differences are more about emphasis than content: is in many ways more satisfying and richer morally and socially than the Whereas Constant is chiefly concerned about free and flourishing insipid utilitarianism presented by their English contemporaries. individuals and their protected domains, Tocqueville’s main topic is the free society and its prerequisites. Bastiat served in the Constituent Assembly and in the Legislative Assembly with Tocqueville and was also a well-known spokesman in France for economic freedom. There (89) Tocqueville, Democracy, Vol. 2, p. 377. is an unmistakable resemblance between Tocqueville’s observation (90) Letter to Duvergier de Hauranne 1 September 1856. Editor’s Introduction, Tocqueville, about democracy, published in 1835, and Bastiat’s later distinction Democracy, Vol. 1, p. lxxxiv. 280 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) 281

Herbert Spencer

(1820–1903)

n the history of ideas, Herbert Spencer occupies a peculiar position. In the late nineteenth century, this polymath who wrote about Ialmost everything was probably the world’s best-known philo­ sopher, whereas in the early twentieth century he had sunk into oblivion. ‘Who now reads Spencer?’ a left-wing sociologist asked in 1937.(1) There are many possible answers. The belief in progress, en­dorsed by Spencer and plausible in the late nineteenth century, was largely abandoned­ by twentieth century man, confronted by total war and total state and the unspeakable horrors produced by those twins. Moreover, it certainly did not look like Spencer’s minimal state had been selected by history as the state fittest to survive. Everywhere the state has taken on a much wider role than that of just preventing injustice. Some of Spencer’s utterances, especially about the unfittest people in society, also sound harsh to modern ears.(2) But in fact, few philosophers have been as mis­ understood and maligned as Spencer. For him, survival of the fittest did not mean victory of the strongest in a violent struggle, but rather success in adapting to new circumstances and producing goods to satisfy­ human needs. Spencer was not a defender of the powers to be, the aristocracies­ of birth and wealth, but rather a spokesman for the common man, con­ sumers and taxpayers. He did not reject charity, but wanted it to be private and doubted that it could indeed be called charity if enforced by the state. Unlike his more acclaimed contemporary John Stuart Mill, he

When Spencer speaks about the ‘survival of the fittest’, he means those who can best satisfy the (1) Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (New York: Free Press, 1968 [1937]), p. 3. He was quoting C. Crane Brinton, English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (London: Benn, 1933). needs of others, not the physically Perhaps today one could ask: Who now reads Parsons? Or Brinton? strongest. Painting by John Bagnold Burgess. (2) Even Friedrich von Hayek, perhaps the most distinguished liberal philosopher of the twentieth century, distanced himself from Spencer, despite the many features that their respective theories share. 282 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 283 was a consistent opponent of British colonialism. Indeed, he abhorred results’.(4) In Spencer’s youth liberalism was the order of day. His military aggression: People should trade with other countries, he held, country saw a slow, but sure, increase in individual freedom, not as the not try to conquer them. Arguably, Spencer’s Principle of Equal Freedom implementation of a master plan, but rather as a series of concessions is clearer, and supported by better arguments, than the ‘Harm Principle’ by the ruling class to maintain peace. Restrictions on the participation presented by Mill. To many, Spencer’s idea of a state confined to the task by Roman Catholics in public life were removed in 1829; the outdated of preventing injustice seems more likely to allow individuals to flourish electoral system was reformed in 1832; slavery was abolished throughout than the modern ‘warfare-welfare state’.(3) the British Empire in 1833; the Corn Laws were repealed in 1846. The young Spencer worked as a civil engineer in the booming British Spencer’s Life and Works railways, but found time to publish a booklet in 1843, The Proper Sphere of Government, where he argued for a minimal state confining itself to Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, England, on 27 April 1820, the son the protection of justice or, rather, the prevention of injustice.(5) From of George Spencer, a religious dissenter who ran his own school, and his 1848 to 1853 Spencer served as assistant editor of The Economist. In 1851, wife Harriet, born Holmes. He was educated at home and by his uncle, the he published one of his main works, Social Statics, where he criticised Reverend Thomas Spencer, vicar of Hinton Charterhouse, near Bath, a the utilitarianism of many of his English contemporaries and presented committed free trader and anti-statist. Spencer was proud of his family’s his Principle of Equal Freedom. Some of the ideas found in the book were tradition of non-conformity, but quick to point out that it was only non- quite radical, such as his advocacy of a right to ignore the state and the conformity to other human beings, fallible as they are, not to principles, as demand for land expropriation, despite his general support of private property. One reason for his position on land was that he thought it had in nonconformity to human authority implies conformity most cases been unjustly appropriated. ‘The original deeds were written to something regarded as higher than human authority. with the sword, rather than with the pen; not lawyers, but soldiers, were And this conformity is of the same intrinsic nature the conveyancers; blows were the current coin given in payment; and for whether it be shown towards a conceived personal seals, blood was used in preference to wax. Could valid claims be thus Deity, or whether it be shown towards a Power constituted? Hardly.’(6) transcending conception whence the established order According to Spencer, spontaneous evolution is cruel in order to be proceeds—whether the rule of life is derived from kind; it is supposed divine dicta or whether it is derived from ascertained natural principles. In either case there a discipline which is pitiless in the working out of good: is obedience to regulations upheld as superior to the a felicity-pursuing law which never swerves for the regulations made by men. avoidance of partial and temporary suffering. The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come He added that there was a further trait common to his two lines of forefathers, a ‘regard for remote results rather than for immediate (4) Herbert Spencer, Autobiography, Vol. I (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1904), pp. 12–13. This book, and many others by Spencer, are accessible at the Liberty Fund website: https://www.libertyfund.org/ (5) Herbert Spencer, The Proper Sphere of Government (London: W. Brittain, 1843). The booklet consisted of twelve letters which had been published in The Nonconformist in 1842–1843. (3) The term ‘warfare-welfare state’ is used by Alberto Mingardi, Herbert Spencer (London: (6) Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, or the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 3. First of Them Developed (London: John Chapman, 1851), p. 115. 284 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 285

upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many ‘in shallows and in miseries,’ are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.(7)

Two years after the publication of Social Statics, Spencer inherited some money from his uncle and left his job at The Economist in order to devote him­self to his studies. In London, through his friend and publisher, John Chapman, he made the acquaintance of many of the leading British intellectuals of the day, including philosopher John Stuart Mill and writer Marian Evans who wrote novels under the pseudonym George Eliot; Evans seems to have been the only woman that the rather unsociable Spencer ever fancied. In the next few decades Spencer produced one heavy tome after another on various subjects, trying to construct a coherent system of Railways, facilitating trade knowledge, based upon self-reliance and spontaneous evolution. ‘The between distant places, are for contact with some liberal Darwinists, ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the Spencer symbols of progress. including Thomas H. Huxley. With them, (8) Painting by Lionel Walden, world with fools,’ he wrote in 1858. Spencer looked upon Charles Cardiff Docks. Spencer formed the X Club which from 1864 Darwin’s theory of evolution, first published in 1859, with interest, met regularly for dinners and conversation. although he did not completely agree with him, and in 1864 he coined It was supposed to be united by a ‘devotion a new term, ‘the survival of the fittest’.(9) Two years later Darwin to science, pure and free, untrammelled by religious dogmas’.(12) Huxley wrote to a friend: ‘I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages once joked that Spencer’s idea of a tragedy was ‘a beautiful theory killed of H. Spencer’s excellent expression of “the survival of the fittest”. This, by an ugly fact’.(13) Spencer was also a member of the Athenaeum Club however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter.’(10) Darwin in London, many of whose members were distinguished scientists. inserted the expression ‘survival of the fittest’ into later editions of his During a war which British forces in India fought against Afghanistan in Origin of Species.(11) Spencer’s interest in evolution brought him into 1878–1880, Spencer was once around in the Athenaeum when another club member expressed concern about British troops in danger. Spencer retorted: ‘When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, (7) Spencer, Statics, pp. 322–323. The author is of course quoting Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3: ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.’ shot themselves.’(14) Spencer, a lifelong bachelor, was a family friend (8) Herbert Spencer, State-Tamperings with Money and Banks, Westminster Review, Vol. 13 (1858), pp. of a businessman, Richard Potter, and his wife, Laurencina, who was 210–232. (9) Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Vol. 1 (London: Williams & Norgate, 1864), p. 444.

(10) Letter from Charles Darwin to Alfred R. Wallace 5 July 1866. The Correspondence of Charles (12) Ruth Barton, The X Club: Power and Authority in Victorian Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Darwin, Vol. 14, ed. by Frederick Burkhardt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 235. Press, 2018), p. 13. (11) He commented in the fifth edition of theOrigin of Species (London: John Murray, 1869), p. 72: ‘The (13) Ibid., p. 226. expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.’ (14) Herbert Spencer, Patriotism, Facts and Comments (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1902), p. 126. 286 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 287 passion­ately interested in ideas. He spent much time with one of their development from military to industrial societies that was in danger daughters, Beatrice, acting as a kind of a substitute father to her. It is of being reversed. Fearing that unlimited democracy might extinguish one of the ironies of history that Beatrice later married Sidney Webb, individual liberty he now opposed the extension of the franchise which and together they became formidable champions of socialism in Great he had supported as a young man. He also repudiated his early belief that Britain. land should be expropriated. It was, he argued, unfair to those who had Spencer was at the height of his fame in 1882 when he reluctantly paid full price for their land; it was also difficult, well-nigh impossible, accepted an in­vitation to visit the United States. One of the passengers on to distinguish between the contributions of man on the one hand and the ship taking­ him to New York was an admirer, steel magnate Andrew nature on the other hand to the value of land; again, this change would Carnegie. Over dinner one evening, the discussion fell upon impressions confer too much power into the hands of officials. Spencer remained a made by famous people at first meeting. Were they anything like people strong opponent of British imperialism: ‘The white savages of Europe imagined? Carnegie said that nothing could be more different that the are overrunning the dark savages everywhere.’(18) But he had become person imagined and the person beheld in the flesh. ‘Oh!’ said Spencer, a voice in the wilderness. The trend towards the warfare-welfare state ‘in my case, for instance, was it so?’ Carnegie replied, ‘Yes’, and went on: continued, and Spencer died a disappointed man on 8 December 1903. ‘You more than any. I had imagined my teacher, the great calm philo­ sopher brooding Buddha-like, over all things, unmoved; never did I Individual Rights Based on Utility dream of seeing him excited over the question of Cheshire or Cheddar cheese.’ The day before Spencer had pushed away a piece of Cheshire With his moral theory, Spencer tries to move beyond the traditional cheese at his table, served by the waiter, exclaiming angrily: ‘Cheddar, distinction in ethics between deontological and teleological theories. Cheddar, not Cheshire; I said Cheddar.’ Spencer laughed heartily at the Deontologists, for example Immanuel Kant, claim that there are joke with other passengers.(15) In the United States, he only gave one absolute principles ruling society, defining the rights and duties of talk, at Delmonico’s in New York, where he surprised the guests, mostly individuals, whereas teleologists such as Jeremy Bentham judge human businessmen, by strictures against the American way of life, especially actions by their consequences, good and bad. Theories of natural law what he saw as on over-devotion to work. ‘Life is not for learning nor is and natural rights are deontological, and utilitarianism is teleological. life for working, but learning and working are for life.’(16) There are logical and practical problems with both positions. How are Spencer observed with alarm the increased economic intervention people to derive the fixed principles in which deontologists believe? in Britain, under Liberals as well as Conservatives, and in 1884 he What is the moral basis of individual rights? If the answer is human published The Man Versus the State, a collection of polemical articles reason, as is most common, then a demarcation problem arises about where he concisely set out his political views.(17) He made a distinction those with little reason, such as children, imbeciles, lunatics and between military societies based on brute force and industrial societies the demented, or perhaps the mass in a frenzy. In Spencer’s time, based on free trade and surmised that hitherto there had been a steady ‘savages’ were not thought to qualify, either, as individuals with rights and duties. John Stuart Mill, unlike Spencer a British imperialist, held that ‘Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing (15) Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography (New York: Houghton & Mifflin, 1920), p. 333. Cf. Spencer, Autobiography, Vol. I, p. 424. (16) Spencer, Autobiography, Vol. II, p. 479. (17) Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State (London: Williams & Norgate, 1884), repr. with additions in The Man Versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom (18) Letter from Herbert Spencer to Moncure D. Conway 17 July 1898. David Duncan, The Life and (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1981). Letters of Herbert Spencer (London: Methuen, 1908), p. 410. 288 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 289

divided on other moral issues. Should people have a right to enter into same-sex marriages, or to practise bigamy? These issues are real and by no means settled. The former right is now accepted in most Western countries, but hardly elsewhere. No right to practise bigamy, by consent of all concerned, is however recognised in Western countries. Utah was not admitted to the United States until she had outlawed bigamy, while in many Muslim countries it is legal and practised.(21) Teleological moral theories are also problematic. First, they seem even more indeterminate than deontological theories. For example, if Bentham’s maxim of the greatest happiness to the greatest number is adopted, then the question becomes what constitutes happiness. There is no one standard of happiness, no compass to guide us. This is one reason Spencer rejects Bentham’s utilitarianism (which he calls ‘the expediency philosophy’). Even if people could agree on a definition of happiness, Spencer adds, it would be difficult or impossible to implement that agreement, not least because our activities often have unintended consequences. Thirdly, utilitarians seem to assume that it should be the with barbarians,­ provided the end be their Famous Victorian authors. task of government to bring about the greatest happiness to the greatest Seated from left: poet (19) (22) improvement.’ For ‘civilised’ nations on Charles Lamb, Spencer, and number. Utilitarianism ‘takes government into partnership’. But the other hand, Mill suggested that common writer John Ruskin. Standing government is a necessary evil, Spencer believes, and should confine from left: philosopher John workers, with their inferior reason, would Stuart Mill, the Rev. Charles itself to the prevention of injustice. If the utilitarian goal ‘means the Kingsley, and biologist have one vote each, while educated people Charles Darwin. Spencer benefit of the mass, not of the individual—of the future as much as of the would be given two or more votes.(20) is neither a utilitarian like present, it presupposes some one to judge of what will most conduce to Mill nor an evolutionist like (23) Perhaps the demarcation problem can be Darwin. Albumen Print 1876: that benefit’. Utilitarians and other teleologists ignore the individual. resolved, but hardly in the way proposed by Hughes & Edmonds. He is not supposed to have any irrevocable rights that could constrain Mill. An­other difficulty with deontological government, and indeed Bentham dismissed natural rights as ‘nonsense theories is that, even if human reason may be invoked as the moral basis upon stilts’.(24) The individual seems to be nothing but a means to the of individual rights and duties, such theories may be indeterminate because people disagree about what is reasonable and what is not. For (21) Of course, rich and powerful people practise bigamy at will. In most countries, they are not centuries, heresy, witchcraft and adultery were considered abominable breaking any law, if they do not go through a formal marriage ceremony with their second partner. crimes. Nowadays, the very words sound strange. But opinion is still French President François Mitterand kept two homes in Paris, although only one of his two female partners was legally recognised as his wife. (22) Spencer, Statics, p. 14. (23) Ibid., p. 15. (19) John Stuart Mill, Essay on Liberty (1859), Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, ed. by John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), p. 224. (24) Jeremy Bentham, Rights, Representation, and Reform: Nonsense upon Stilts and Other Writings on the French Revolution, The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. by Philip Schofield, Catherine (20) John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (1861). Collected Works, Vol. XIX, Pease-Watkin, and Cyprian Blamires (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 317–401. Bentham ed. by John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), p. 475. was criticising the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen from 1789. 290 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 291 given end, in the case of utilitarians the greatest happiness to the greatest example, less dramatic but more relevant, is private property. Taken as number. a system, it has immense utility, but one could easily think of individual The dilemma is that a liberal like Spencer wants the conclusions of a cases where it would be tempting to abrogate it, for example when a theory of natural rights, while he cannot but admit the cogency of con­ young spendthrift inherits­ a fortune that he will squander or when an old sequentialist arguments. Spencer solves this dilemma by providing con­ curmudgeon refuses to sell a piece of land, useless to him but necessary sequentialist arguments for a system in which natural rights are regarded for building a road. But the system ceases to be useful if in such cases as given, unconditional and irrevocable. What is crucial is the utility of exemptions would be allowed. David Hume presents a similar argument: the whole system, not that of individual acts or rules. Thus, Spencer can be described as a system-utilitarian, not as an act-utilitarian or a rule- But however single acts of justice may be contrary, utilitarian, to use two terms common in moral philosophy. This system either to public or private interest, ’tis certain that the has not been designed by anyone. It has slowly developed in an historical whole plan or scheme is highly conducive, or indeed process as people have gained a moral sense by cumulative experiences. absolutely requisite, both to the support of society, The system is the result of human action, but not of human design, and and the well-being of every individual. ’Tis impossible once it has come into being, people can see and understand its utility. to separate the good from the ill. Property must be But it only maintains its utility, paradoxically, if people respect and stable, and must be fix’d by general rules. Tho’ in one obey certain general moral and political principles, such as, say, the ten instance the public be a sufferer, this momentary ill is commandments, which in the case of a conflict will overrule utilitarian amply compensated by the steady prosecution of the considerations. Consider Raskolnikov’s choice in Crime and Punishment. rule, and by the peace and order which it establishes If he kills the evil old usuress Alyona Ivanovna, then total happiness in society. And even every individual person must in the world would probably increase. But he would be violating the find himself a gainer on ballancing the account; since, commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill’, which implies in turn your right without justice, society must immediately dissolve, not to be killed, even if your death would make a lot of people happy. This and everyone must fall into that savage and solitary commandment is part of a system which has proved its utility, precisely condition, which is infinitely worse than the worst by compliance with principles and rejection of short-term utilitarian situation that can possibly be suppos’d in society.(25) calculations. Moreover, such calculations are subject to uncertainty. When Raskolnikov is killing the usuress, her half-sister Lizaveta, innocent Hume and Spencer both argue for individual rights—the rights to of any misdeeds, unexpectedly appears, so he has to kill her too. life, liberty and property—which are natural in the sense that they are Another example of the difference between Spencer’s system- spontaneously evolved, not ordained by God, prescribed by reason or utilitarianism and what could be called narrow utilitarianism could stipulated by a legislator. be when terrorists threaten to kill hostages unless their accomplices The idea behind this acceptance of a system of firm and fundamental in custody are released. The narrow utilitarian might argue that we principles, ensuring individual rights, but based on considerations of would be better off by agreeing to their demands. But the long-term utility or happiness, has been expressed in one form or another by other consequences would be to encourage those and other terrorists to play conservative-liberal thinkers besides Hume. Edmund Burke conceived the game again. Under the rule of law, people in custody certainly are entitled to due process, but should not be released because of threats. (25) David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: If they have violated the law, they should receive punishment. A third Clarendon Press, 1896), Bk. III, Pt. II, p. 497. 292 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 293 of the social contract as being written by history, being a partnership between the living, dead, and unborn; it was a contract about the principles which promote the good life; and it could not be dissolved at pleasure.(26) In a similar vein, Alexis de Tocqueville exclaimed that when he refused to obey an unjust law, he was not denying the right of the majority to command; he was ‘only appealing from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of the human race’.(27) Again, American economist James M. Buchanan takes his lead from the founder of the Chicago School of Economics Frank H. Knight when he talks about ‘relatively absolute absolutes’ by which he means principles which are absolute in the short term, but relative in the long term. Such rules are chosen by generations rather than by the people here and now, by the species rather than the individual. ‘Existing preference functions and the institutions generated by past choices are ‘relatively absolute absolutes,’ subject to change, but only through time—change that might be influenced only marginally by choices made now.’(28) Such principles Beverley Minster seen from change very slowly. But perhaps one day banning bigamy will seem as Western Pasture. The young had said that Spencer was not a utilitarian. bizarre as legislating against heresy and witchcraft. Spencer held that privately ‘My dissent from the doctrine of Utility as owned land should be Spencer’s system-utilitarianism could also be called indirect util­ expropriated because the rent commonly understood, concerns not the i­tar­ian­ism: Utility should not be regarded as the direct and desir­ from it was unearned. He later object to be reached by men, but the method revised his view, as this would able goal of human actions, but it will be brought about indirectly by cause too much upheaval and of reaching it. While I admit that happiness respecting and obeying certain moral principles.(29) In Social Statics also be unfair to those who is the ultimate end to be contemplated, I do had paid full price for their Spencer writes: ‘It is one thing, however, to hold that greatest happiness land. Photo: Tony Grist. not admit that it should be the proximate is the creative purpose, and a quite different thing to hold that greatest end.’(31) In the letter, Spencer says that the happiness should be the immediate aim of man. It has been the fatal business of moral philosophy should be to error of the expediency-philosophers to confound these positions.’(30) deduce, from the laws of life and the conditions of existence, what kinds He explains his position clearly in a letter to John Stuart Mill who of actions would tend to produce happiness and what kinds would tend to produce unhappiness. ‘Having done this, its deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and are to be conformed to irrespective (26) Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Select Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. of a direct estimation of happiness or misery.’ In the course of time, II (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1999), p. 192–193. man has developed certain fundamental moral intuitions, and ‘though (27) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835), Vol. 2, tran. by James T. Schleifer (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2010), p. 410. these moral intuitions are the results of accumulated experiences of (28) James M. Buchanan and Geoffrey Brennan,The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy utility, gradually organized and inherited, they have come to be quite (1985), The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 10 (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1999), p. 85. (29) John Gray, Indirect Utility and Fundamental Rights, Social Philosophy and Policy, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1984), pp. 73–91. (30) Spencer, Statics, p. 66. (31) Spencer, Autobiography, Vol. II, p. 100. 294 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 295 independent of conscious experience.’(32) claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the Mill himself came close to presenting indirect utilitarianism in possession of like liberties by every other man.’(35) In a later treatise on his Essay on Liberty. While he, like Bentham, rejected natural rights, justice he writes: ‘Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he he offered a qualified utilitarianism: ‘I regard utility as the ultimate infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.’(36) Spencer’s Principle appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, of Equal Freedom seems clearer than Mill’s Harm Principle that ‘the only grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.’(33) purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a Mill’s qualifications were crucial. Possibly, ‘utility in the largest sense’ civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own could be interpreted as the utility of a system rather than of individual good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.’(37) As countless acts or rules, and in Essay on Liberty and other writings Mill explained commentators have noted, the concept of harm offers limited guidance in that the ‘permanent interests of man as a progressive being’ consisted in resolving practical cases. You may harm others by your actions, even if you him being able to exercise and develop his abilities, cultivate his higher have a right to undertake them. In a world of interrelated individuals, it is self, grow as a person. Thus Mill moved from utilitarianism proper to often difficult to distinguish between self-regarding and other-regarding some kind of perfectionism, arguing that a society could be considered­ activities. Is the harm in question subjective, for example hurt feelings, good if and when it would provide possibilities­ for human flourishing.(34) disappointments and moral outrage, or objective, such as material His position may seem similar to that of Spencer. But Mill, unlike damage? If the latter, does it consist in deprivation of potential gain or Spencer, would not shed his utilitarian heritage. He was ambivalent direct loss of present assets? ‘But when we set about drawing practical between direct and indirect utilitarianism, and therefore his defence deductions from the propositions that a man is not at liberty to do things of freedom in terms of utility, even in ‘the largest sense’, was much less injurious to himself, and that he is not at liberty,’ Spencer writes, ‘to do coherent and less clear than that of Spencer. For Mill, utility, if seriously what may give unhappiness to his neighbours, we find ourselves involved endangered, would overrule rights, whereas for Spencer, fundamental in complicated estimates of pleasures and pains, to the obvious peril of our rights will always prevail over utility. But then the question becomes conclusions.’(38) Mill was of course aware of some of these difficulties, but whether Spencer’s system-utilitarianism has lost those features which his attempts to resolve them were not always successful. Spencer points would make it utilitarianism. It might be said as well that it is a theory of out a crucial difference between the two principles. His Principle of Equal natural law and natural rights, based on the human condition. Freedom excludes a wide range of improper actions, but does not exclude certain other improper ones, whereas the utilitarian principle of limiting The Principle of Equal Freedom the liberty of each by the necessity of not giving pain to the rest, excludes not only improper actions, but also along with them many other actions Spencer’s Principle of Equal Freedom is based on his moral theory. The which are proper. Therefore his principle should be preferred to that of system which promotes human happiness is the system in which indi­ the utilitarians.(39) viduals have the right to life, liberty and property. Spencer presents his Principle in several places. In Social Statics he writes: ‘Every man may (35) Spencer, Statics, p. 78. (36) Herbert Spencer, Justice: Being Part IV of the Principles of Ethics (London: Williams & Norgate, 1891), p. 46. (32) Ibid., p. 101. (37) Mill, Essay on Liberty. Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, p. 223. (33) Mill, Essay on Liberty. Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, p. 224. (38) Spencer, Statics, p. 82. (34) John Gray, John Stuart Mill on liberty, utility and rights, Nomos, Vol. XXIII, ed. by J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman (New York: New York University Press, 1981), pp. 80–116. (39) Ibid., p. 81. 296 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 297

The Principle of Equal Freedom implies the minimal state in Spencer’s view: a state which confines itself to preventing injustice. In an 1862 speech in Berlin, German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle mocked this idea as being that of a night-watchman state, Nachtwächterstaat.(40) But it would not be amiss for minimalists to adopt this description of their ideal state, because it emphasises an important, perhaps the most important, function of any legitimate state, to defend its citizens against forces of the dark, against foreign and domestic aggressors. In Social Statics Spencer actually goes further. He argues that people have a right to ignore the state:

As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support.

Spencer regards it as self-evident that in so behaving the citizen in no way reduces the liberty of others, for his position is a passive one and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. He cannot be compelled to continue his relationship with the state, because it involves payment of taxes, and the taking away of a man’s property against his will is an infringement of his rights. If the citizen decides to ignore the ‘mutual- safety confederation’ which the state is, consequently he loses all claim to its good offices, and exposes himself to the danger of maltreatment—a thing he is quite at liberty to do if he likes. ‘He cannot be coerced into

Spencer grounds individual rights political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he in the superior performance, in the can withdraw from it without committing any such breach; and he has long run, of a society respecting (41) such rights, and thus in its survival therefore a right so to withdraw.’ against the test of time. Painting by Casper David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. (40) Ferdinand Lassalle, Das Arbeiterprogramm: … Rede gehalten 12. April 1862 [The Workers’ Programme: Speech delivered 12 April 1862], Gesammelte Reden und Schriften, ed. by Eduard Bernstein, Vol. 2 (Berlin: Cassirer, 1919), p. 195. (41) Spencer, Statics, p. 206. 298 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 299

Although Spencer repudiated this view, and deleted the chapter from It is of course difficult to see how those who do not want to contribute later editions of his book, his anarchism is not as farfetched as it might to defence could be excluded from its benefits. But perhaps one day seem, if the state is conceived of as a ‘mutual-safety confederation’. technological improvements may make this possible, or perhaps Economists distinguish between four kinds of necessities. First, they defence in its traditional sense may become irrelevant. Certainly the may be private goods such as pieces of cloth. Such goods are rivalrous other pure public good, law and order, can to a large extent be produced which means that their consumption by you prevents simultaneous privately.(44) There are private arbitration courts, and privately funded consumption of them by others. They are also excludable which means measures to increase safety, such as gated communities, armoured that their consumption can be confined to those who pay for them. It vehicles, security guards, doormen, private investigators, locks, alarm is in the nature of private goods that they can be produced privately, systems and security cameras, not to forget Lassalle’s night watchmen. without any help from the state. Secondly, they may be club goods, In medieval Iceland there was no central government from 930 to non-rivalrous and excludable, for example broadcasting in a certain 1262. The country was too far away from other European countries for area. Such goods can also be produced privately, by free associations, defence to be an acute task, and law and order were privately produced. as James M. Buchanan has demonstrated.(42) Thirdly, they may be Iceland was a society of about 5,000 farmers, and their families and common goods, rivalrous and non-excludable, such as fish stocks, forests farmhands. The country was divided into four Quarters and thirteen and other common pool resources. Such goods can also, in most cases Districts. Each farmer could choose which chieftain in his Quarter to at least, be produced privately, by local communities, as Elinor Ostrom follow and support. In return, the chieftain undertook to protect and has shown.(43) Finally, they may be pure public goods, non-rivalrous and support him in legal cases. Thus, the chieftainships could be regarded non-excludable, such as defence. If there is a theoretical justification as competitive protection associations. Legal disputes were settled by for government as a ‘mutual-safety confederation’, it would be as a District and Quarter courts and by the so-called Fifth Court, and they producer of such public goods. The main reason why public goods are were enforced by the people involved, supported by their chieftains non-excludable is that information costs are too high: The producer and possible allies. Violations of the law were punished on the basis of a public good cannot prevent people who have not paid for it from of restitution: if you had killed or maimed a man, then you had to pay having access to it, because he does not know who those people are. But damages to his family or, if he remained alive, to himself. The law was technological improvements tend to lower information costs which may mainly customary, but it was interpreted and developed by an assembly turn public goods into one of the other three kinds of goods. Consider of chieftains, the Commonwealth Parliament, Althingi, meeting at roads. They are not really a public good because road tolls could in Thingvellir each summer, at the same time as the Quarter Courts and theory confine their consumption to those who pay for it. But road tolls the Fifth Court. The Icelandic Commonwealth had only one official, the are cumbersome, and therefore people have accepted road building by Lawspeaker, whose role was to announce and interpret the law.(45) The government. However, nowadays electronic devices placed by roads system worked tolerably well for 300 years, and Iceland was peaceful could read the number plates of cars driving on them and instantly in comparison with the countries closest by, Norway, Scotland and charge their use, or ‘consumption’ to the credit cards of the car owners. England, which were the battlefields of kings, their rivals and armies.

(42) James M. Buchanan, An Economic Theory of Clubs, Economica, New Series, Vol. 32, No. 125 (44) Murray Rothbard, Power and Market (Menlo Park CA: Institute for Humane Studies, 1970); David (1965), pp. 1–14. Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom (LaSalle IL: Open Court, 1973). (43) Elinor Ostrom, Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic (45) Birgir Th. Runolfsson [B. Solvason], Institutional Evolution in the Icelandic Commonwealth, Systems, American Economic Review, Vol. 100, No. 3 (2010), pp. 641–672. Constitutional Political Economy, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1993), pp. 97–125. 300 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 301

The example of Iceland demonstrates that law and order are not son published in 1878. The author is walking along a country road when necessarily pure public goods. he comes across a beggar who asks him for food. He replies: Anarcho-capitalism, however interesting theoretically, is hardly on the agenda in liberal Western democracies. Spencer certainly is better ‘Tis contrary to every rule known for his resolute defence of economic non-interventionism than That I my fellows should assist; for his anarchist leanings as a young man. The impact of Spencer’s ideas I’m of the scientific school, could be seen in a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United Political economist. States in 1905. Joseph Lochner was a baker who had been fined by the Dost thou know, deluded one, state of New York for letting employees work longer than 60 hours a week, What Adam Smith has clearly proved, thus breaking a state law. Lochner held that the state law was in violation That ’tis self-interest alone of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution which prevented by which the wheels of life are moved? any state from depriving persons of their life, liberty or property without due process of law. This implied, he believed, a constitutional protection The author continues: of freedom of contract. The Court accepted his argument and ruled that the law limiting bakers’ working hours was not a legitimate exercise of This competition is the law state police powers and that therefore it was unconstitutional. A minority By which we either live or die; dissented, one of them, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing that the I’ve no demand thy labour for, majority’s decision rested ‘upon an economic theory which a large part Why, then, should I thy wants supply? of the country does not entertain’. According to him, the Fourteenth And Herbert Spencer’s active brain Amendment did not imply the protection of freedom of contract. It Shows how the social struggle ends; did ‘not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics’.(46) In the 1930s, the The weak die out, the strong remain; US Supreme Court in effect reversed the decision in the Lochner case, ‘Tis this that nature’s plan intends. upholding limitations on the freedom of contract and interpreting the due process requirement as formal rather than substantive. Some legal The beggar, impressed by the logic, points out to the poet that they are scholars, albeit a minority, argue nevertheless that the decision in the alone on the road. Now they should put it to a test who is the fitter. If the Lochner case was right.(47) poet declines the test, the beggar will take his watch and pocketbook, ‘As competition strips the rival.’ And so he does.(48) Spencer’s Liberalism and Social Darwinism Amusing as the socialist poet is, he distorts the arguments of Smith and Spencer. Smith believes that people in pursuit of their own interests Spencer’s critics thought of him as an uncaring person who wanted to unintentionally work for the common good. Competition forces them leave the poor and weak to their cruel, but inevitable fate. This is brought to try and offer better goods or services than their competitors. While out in a satirical poem which Canadian socialist Thomas Phillips Thomp­ Spencer certainly does not think the idle and slothful should be given food, which would only encourage their idleness and sloth, he is in favour of private charity. His opposition to public charity is based on (46) 198 US 45, Lochner v. People of the State of New York. (47) Richard Epstein, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 128–129. (48) Phillips Thompson, The Political Economist and the Tramp, Labor Standard (New York), 14 December 1878. 302 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 303

this kind; and towards such an enslavement many recent measures, and still more the measures advocated, are carrying us.’(49) Unwittingly, the Canadian poet illustrated some of Spencer’s points. He certainly does not condone the violence the beggar used in the end against the poet. It was made possible by the fact that the poet and the beggar were alone on the road and nobody else in sight. Some kind of night watchman was needed. Moreover, if the beggar was strong enough to assume the role of a highwayman, he was able to work instead of beg­ging. Nevertheless, modern conservative liberals might envisage a larger role for the state than Spencer may have done, although they would accept his Principle of Equal Freedom and argue from it. Not only has the state to provide defence and maintain law and order, as Spencer would agree (or as modern economists would put it, produce pure public goods), but it may have to keep up a safety net which would include transfers to those who cannot support themselves, such as victims of unforeseen accidents, disabilities or chronic illnesses for which they bear no responsibility, or of natural disasters and epidemics which no his non-aggression rule. If people want to be Socialists dismiss the liberal one caused or could foresee. Such transfers would be made in the name conception of the state as charitable, then they should be so at their own the ‘Night-Watchman State’. of freedom and not justice, because they would be necessary to maintain expense, not that of others. They should not But it is an important, indeed law and order and the respect for private property and free trade. These indispensable, function of the enlist government in an attempt to transfer state to protect its citizens transfers would not be based on any rights of the recipients, but on the from thugs of the night, resources forcibly from some to others. In domestic or foreign. duties of the contributors to keep the ship of state on an even keel. The fact, Spencer submits, if they do so, they are Painting by Rembrandt van state is not merely a protection association, but also an insurance com­ Rijn, The Night Watch. enslaving others. The definition of a slave is pany. In my country, Iceland, there is a consensus for example that the that he works under coercion to satisfy the state would support victims of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and ava­ desires of others. Spencer asks his readers to imagine how this slavery lanches, common on the island. Less plausible would be to transfer tax­ could be gradually mitigated. The slave is first allowed a short time in payers’ money to people in order to tackle self-inflicted problems such which to work for himself and a plot of land to grow extra food. Then as alcoholism, promiscuity, obesity or venereal diseases recklessly con­ he is given the power to sell the product of his plot and keep the money. tracted. The two real criteria to distinguish between justified and un­ When the owner of the slave dies and his estate comes into the hands of justified transfers would be individual responsibility and social peace. the community, has the condition of the slave changed? ‘The essential Yet another important role that the state has to assume according question is—How much is he compelled to labour for other benefit than to conservative liberals is to be a guardian of commonly shared values, his own, and how much can he labour for his own benefit?’ Spencer asks. the social contract between our ancestors, those living now and coming ‘If, without option, he has to labour for the society, and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society. Socialistic arrangements necessitate an enslavement of (49) Spencer, Man Versus the State, pp. 55–57. 304 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 305 generations. This would imply, for example, the preservation of national passed on to those following it. Spencer did not believe that the survival of monuments, respect for the flag and national anthem of the state, and the strongest was necessarily good, as was shown by his distinction between support for instruction in the country’s language and history. In Iceland, military and industrial societies, force and trade. He was one of the most for example, the state sets strict rules about the use of the national anthem, vocal opponents of imperialism in the nineteenth century, and the very idea protects some historic houses and certain rare species, such as the White- of eugenics—that government officials should decide who would be born tailed Eagle and the Gyr Falcon, operates a national park on the site of the and who would not—goes against his core belief in spontaneous evolution, old Icelandic Parliament, and runs an institute where the old Icelandic brought about by interactions of free individuals. manuscripts, the pride of the nation, are kept. This is intervention, because While Spencer was not a Social Darwinist, some of his contemporaries these operations require modest amounts of taxpayers’ money and were. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, for example, believed that ‘sup­ restrict individual freedom, again modestly, but it is to a large extent non- erior’ nations would survive, and ‘inferior’ ones perish.(51) In 1849, authoritative, not forced upon people, whereas the intervention Spencer Engels wrote that in the Habsburg Empire, only Germans, Poles and opposes is mostly authoritative, involving commands and penalties.(50) Mag­yars could be regarded as progressive: ‘All the other large and The poem about the fight between the poet and the beggar may illuminate small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in however why Spencer has been widely regarded as a proponent of Social the revolutionary world storm.’ Engels added: ‘There is no country Darwinism. What is meant by this term, almost invariably used as a term of in Europe which does not have in some corner or other one or several abuse, is the view that Darwin’s notions about struggle for existence, natural ruined fragments of peoples, the remnant of a former population that selection and survival of the fittest, used by him to explain the evolution of was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became species, plants and animals (including man), can be transferred to human the main vehicle of historical development.’ He specifically mentioned society. This would imply, the argument goes, that there are superior races Gaels in Scotland, Bretons in France, Basques in Spain and Southern or nations which would succeed, whereas the inferior ones would fail and Slavs in the Habsburg Empire.(52) Engels ended his diatribe against vanish. Might is right, and Devil take the hindmost. Social Darwinism ‘inferior’ nations on a threatening note: ‘The next world war will result would then be used to justify imperialism, racism, eugenics, and in general in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary mercilessness towards the weak of the world. But no serious liberal thinker classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, has held this view, and certainly not Spencer. It is a misapplication of too, is a step forward.’(53) After the United States annexed large parts Darwin’s ideas in at least two ways. First, Social Darwinism really is about the survival of the strongest, not the fittest, and secondly, it implies that the (51) Engels famously said at Marx’ funeral: ‘Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic strongest are also the best. A theory which was intended by Darwin to be nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history.’ Das Begräbnis von Karl Marx an explanatory device, is misconstrued as a normative postulate: whatever (1883). Werke, Vol. 19 (Berlin: Dietz, 1962), p. 335. And Marx sent the first volume ofCapital to Darwin on 16 June 1873, signing it as a ‘sincere admirer’. evolution throws up, is good. Despite the fact that Spencer coined the (52) Expressing himself softly, as was his wont, John Stuart Mill seems to have agreed with Marx term ‘survival of the fittest’, he was not even a Darwinist. His idea of social and Engels about small nations on the fringe: ‘Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial to a Breton, or a Basque of French Navarre, to be brought into the current of the ideas and feelings of a evolution was mainly Lamarckian which meant that he thought successful highly civilized and cultivated people—to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship, sharing the advantages of French protection, and the traditions, customs and habits could be acquired by one generation and dignity and prestige of French power—than to sulk on his own rocks, the half-savage relic of past times, revolving in his own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world. The same remark applies to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander, as members of the British nation.’ Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859). Collected Works, Vol. XIX, ed. by John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), p. 247. (50) The useful distinction between authoritative and non-authoritative intervention is made by John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (1848), Bk. III, Ch. XI, §1, Collected Works of John Stuart (53) Friedrich Engels, Der magyarische Kampf, Neue Rheinische Zeitung 13 January 1849. Werke, Vol. Mill, ed. by John M. Robson, Vol. III (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), p. 937. 6 (Berlin: Dietz, 1961), pp. 168, 172 and 176. English translation, http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/ 306 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 307 of Mexico after a war in 1846–1848, Engels found it rather fortunate that ‘splendid California has been taken away from the lazy Mexicans’. Commenting again on the Habsburg Empire, he said that

the Germans and Magyars united all these small, stunted and impotent little nations into a single big state and thereby enabled them to take part in a historical development from which, left to themselves, they would have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters of this kind cannot be accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken. But in history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable ruthlessness.(54)

Engels also referred contemptuously to the ‘lousy Balkan’ nations under Ottoman rule: ‘These wretched, ruined fragments of one-time nations, the Serbs, Bulgars, Greeks, and other robber bands, on behalf of which the liberal philistine waxes enthusiastic in the interests of Russia, are unwilling to grant each other the air they breathe, and feel obliged to cut (55) each other’s greedy throats.’ Spencer distinguishes Even if Marx was not quite as outspoken as Engels, he was also a Social between industrial and to say which is the least fit for progress and military societies: one (57) Darwinist, applauding the survival of the strongest nations in the merciless is based on peaceful civilisation’. In a comment on Great struggle for existence. He wrote that ‘there is only one way in which the cooperation, the other one Britain as a naval power, he wrote: ‘Such is the on warfare. Painting by murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of William Bell Scott, Iron redeeming feature of war; it puts a nation to the the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that and Coal. test. An exposure to the atmosphere reduces all way is revolutionary terror.’(56) Echoing Engels, he referred to the European mummies to instant dissolution so war passes territories under Ottoman rule as having ‘the misfortune to be inhabited supreme judgments upon social organizations that have outlived their by a conglomerate of different races and nationalities, of which it is hard vitality.’(58) Marx and Engels had nothing but scorn for one of the tiniest nations in Europe. Engels wrote to Marx in 1846: ‘The Icelander still speaks marx/works/1849/01/13.htm (54) Friedrich Engels, Der demokratische Panslawismus, Neue Rheinische Zeitung 15 February 1849. Werke, Vol. 6 (Berlin: Dietz, 1961), pp. 273 and 278–279. English tran. http://marxists.anu.edu.au/ archive/marx/works/1849/02/15.htm (57) Karl Marx, Britische Politik. British Politics, New York Daily Tribune 7 April 1853. Werke, Vol. 9 (Berlin: Dietz, 1960), p. 7. English translation, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/ (55) Engels to August Bebel 17 November 1885. Werke, Vol. 36 (Berlin: Dietz, 1967), p. 391. Tran. by russia/crimean-war.htm#01 Bertram Wolfe. This letter is, for some reason, not published online at the Marxist Archive, where Engels’ other letters to Bebel are found. (58) Karl Marx, Eine neue Enthüllung in England [A New British Revelation], New York Daily Tribune 24 September 1855. Werke, Vol. 11 (Berlin: Dietz, 1961), p. 522. The article is, for some reason, not (56) Karl Marx, Sieg der Kontrerevolution zu Wien, Neue Rheinische Zeitung 7 November 1848. Werke, published online at the Marxist Archive, but it can be found in English in Vol. 14 of Marx and Engels, Vol. 6, p. 457. English translation, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/11/06.htm Collected Works (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), p. 516. 308 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 309 the very same language as the greasy Vikings of anno 900. He drinks fish-oil, by having her committed to the colony.(62) Carrie’s daughter was no lives in an earthen hut and breaks down when the atmosphere doesn’t reek imbecile, either, but she died of measles when she was only eight years of rotten fish.’(59) In 1855, a German socialist in a conversation with Marx old. Carrie Buck was eventually released from the colony. She married made the remark that the English language had been corrupted by Latin. twice, but always regretted that she could not bear more children. She Marx replied that Dutchmen and Danes said the same about the German died in 1983. language and that the ‘Icelanders’ (to show his contempt for that small In the United Kingdom, Spencer’s foster daughter Beatrice Potter nation, Marx put inverted commas around the name) were the only true and her husband Sidney Webb, both leading Fabian socialists, held that people untainted by Southern European influences.(60) ‘inferior’ women had to be prevented from having children. Already in 1891 Sidney Webb warned against the ‘breeding of degenerate hordes of Social Darwinism and Eugenics a demoralized “residuum” unfit for social life’.(63) The Webbs—who were childless themselves—worried that the superior classes (in which they Perhaps the most notorious expression of Social Darwinism in the included themselves) had far too few children and the inferior classes early twentieth century was in eugenics, the attempt to improve the too many. According to them, ‘adverse selection’ was leading to ‘race genetic quality of human beings by excluding ‘inferior’ individuals and suicide’, and the country might gradually fall victim to the Irish and the groups. In the Commonwealth of Virginia and some other states in Jews. They proposed a system of state grants for ‘good’ families from North America laws were passed that gave government the power to the working class, and later they argued in favour of segregating the sterilise ‘inferior’ women. The Supreme Court heard a case about this ‘feeble-minded’.(64) As Sidney Webb put it, ‘No consistent eugenist can in 1927. Carrie Buck, born in 1906, had been placed with foster parents be a “laissez faire” individualist unless he throws up the game in despair. at birth, because her mother had had several children out of wedlock He must interfere, interfere, inter­fere!’(65) Another Fabian socialist, the and was deemed unfit to bring her up. When Carrie was seventeen, she physician and writer Have­lock Ellis, wrote: became pregnant. Her foster parents had her committed to a colony for epileptics and imbeciles where she gave birth to her child, after which The superficially sympathetic man flings a coin to she was sterilised. The Supreme Court upheld the Virginia sterilisation the beggar; the more deeply sympathetic man builds act. Now the same Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who had attacked an almshouse for him so that he need no longer beg; Spencer in the Lochner case was in the majority, and he wrote with but perhaps the most radically sympathetic of all is disdain that ‘Three generations of imbeciles are enough’.(61) Much the man who arranges that the beggar shall not be later, when the case was investigated by interested laymen, it turned born.—So it is the question of breed, the production of out that Carrie was of normal intelligence and that she had been raped fine individuals, the elevation of the ideal of quality in by a relative of her foster parents who had tried to hush up the affair human production over that of mere quantity, begins

(62) Stephen Jay Gould, Carrie Buck’s Daughter, Natural History, Vol. 93, No. 7 (1984), pp. 14–18. (63) Sidney Webb, The Difficulties of Individualism (London: The Fabian Society, 1896), p. 6. Reprint of (59) Engels to Marx, Paris, December 1846. Werke, Vol. 27 (Berlin: Dietz, 1963), p. 72. Tran. by Jesse an article from the Economic Journal for June 1891. Byock. (64) Sidney and Beatrice Webb, The Prevention of Destitution (London: The Fabian Society, 1912), pp. (60) Marx to Engels, 14 December 1855. Werke, Vol. 28 (Berlin: Dietz, 1963), p. 467. I return to Marx’ 46, 52–53, and 58–59. bigotry in the chapter on Popper in this book. (65) Sidney Webb, Eugenics and the Poor Law: The Minority Report, Eugenics Review, Vol. 2, No. 3 (61) 274 US 200, Buck v. Bell. (1910), p. 237. The article was co-written by Beatrice Webb. 310 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 311

to be seen, not merely as a noble idea in itself, but as 400,000 people were forcibly sterilised, while up to 300,000 fell victim to the only method by which Socialism can be enabled to a euthanasia programme which was however strenously opposed by the continue on its present path.(66) German Churches. During the war, millions were sent to labour camps or killed in gas chambers, mostly Jews, but also other groups deemed by the Ellis notably left out the solution which Spencer and other conservative Nazis to be anti-social. Inmates wore triangular badges which identified liberals would have proposed: to turn the beggar into a working man. them, yellow ones for Jews, pink for homosexuals, purple for Jehovah’s In Sweden, leading Social Democrats Gunnar and Alva Myrdal ex­ witnesses, and black for Gypsies. pressed similar opinions in the 1930s as the Webbs had done earlier in A consistent disciple of Spencer could oppose eugenic birth control the United Kingdom, but they had more direct influence on government with two arguments, each of which would be conclusive. First, the policy in their country. In 1934, the Myrdals co-authored a book on the Principle of Equal Freedom would protect the freedom of all women, Crisis in the Population Question, arguing forcefully for sterilisation. and their male partners, to have babies, provided they would take full It was necessary, they said, to ‘circumscribe the reproductive freedom responsibility for them after birth. After all, there are no illegitimate of the slightly feeble-minded’.(67) A sterilisation bill was passed by the children—only illegitimate parents.(69) In the second place, government Swedish Parliament the same year, and between 1935 and 1975, 62,888 officials do not have, and cannot acquire, the knowledge necessary to people were subjected to sterilisation. Most were women. The majority decide who would turn out right in life and who would not. Therefore were labelled as mentally defective, although most probably they suffered decision-makers substituted their own prejudices about race or class for from minor physical or social disabilities. The ideas of the Webbs and the scientific knowledge. Perhaps the sorry saga of eugenics is not only an Myrdals even reached remote Iceland where a leading Social Democrat, example of how power corrupts, but also an illustration of a point made the physician Vilmundur Jonsson, was Iceland’s Director of Health and by many conservative liberals that it may be necessary to accept some an influential Member of Parliament. A sterilisation bill proposed by principles on authority, in this case the axiom that man should not play him was passed by the Icelandic Parliament in 1938, and between 1938 god. and 1975, 722 people were subjected to sterilisation, mostly women as in Sweden.(68) Some other countries in Northern Europe, as well as some states in the United States and provinces in Canada, implemented sterilisation programmes. This was not the case in Southern Europe where the Catholic Church strongly opposed any such programmes. Un­surprisingly, the National Socialists ruling Germany in 1933–1945 implemented much more ruthless eugenic programmes than Swedish Social Democrats, under the banner of ‘racial hygiene’. More than

(66) Havelock Ellis, The Task of Social Hygiene (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2016 [1912]), pp. 324–325. (67) Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, Kris i befolkningsfrågan (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1934), p. 223. Cf. Alberto Spektorowski and Elisabet Mizrachi, Eugenics and the Welfare State in Sweden: The Politics of Social Margins and the Idea of a Productive Society, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 39, No. 3 (2004), pp. 333–352. (68) Unnur Birna Karlsdottir, „Vonun andlegra faradlinga …‘, [‘Sterilisation of the Feebleminded …’], (69) Zipkin v. Mozon, District Court, S. D. California, Central Division, June 1928. Opinion by Judge Saga, Vol. 43, No. 2 (2005), pp. 7–56. Leon R. Yankwich. 313

Lord Acton

(1834–1902)

he belief in objective truth and in absolute moral standards by which rulers and subjects alike should be judged is shared by Tmost or even all conservative liberals, but no one has expressed this belief more clearly than Lord Acton, the British historian. He taught that the discipline of history should not be about what would sound good or please the masters of the day, but about what is true. Perhaps historians could never fully attain truth, but they had an obligation to prefer the more true to the less true. As Icelandic scholar Ari the Learned wrote around 1125 in a history of his country: ‘But whatever is incorrectly stated in these records, it is one’s duty to prefer what proves to be more accurate.’(1) Acton regarded human history as first and foremost the history of freedom. ‘History is liberal because it teaches disrespect, shows up horrors, follies, errors, crimes of the ablest and the best.’(2) While people should not be governed by the past, they should be guided by knowledge of the past.(3) Indeed, history is our collective memory. It is therefore crucial that knowledge of the past is accurate. In a way, our history is our identity. ‘When a day passes it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren’t told or books weren’t written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day. The whole world, all human life, is one long story.’(4) Acton devoted his

(1) The Book of the Icelanders; the Story of the Conversion, tran. by Siân Grønlie (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2006), p. 3. (2) Selections from the Acton Legacy: History, Selected Writings of Lord Acton, ed. by J. Rufus Fears, Vol. Lord Acton warns that power tends III (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1988), p. 622. The Selected Writings are only available from Liberty to corrupt and that absolute power Fund as books, but some older editions of Acton’s works are accessible at the website of Liberty Fund. corrupts absolutely. Painting by (3) Ibid., p. 620. Franz Seraph von Lenbach. (4) Isaac Bashevis Singer, Naftali the storyteller and his horse, Sus, Stories for Children, tran. by Joseph 314 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 315 life to a study of the institutions and traditions which could sustain and Party and served four times as Prime Minister, for almost fourteen years support a free society. in total. It was said that ‘Gladstone influences all around him but Acton. It is Acton who influences Gladstone.’(5) Acton’s Life and Works In 1865, Acton married a relative whom he knew from his years in Munich, Bavarian Countess Marie von Arco auf Valley. They had six John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton was born in Naples on 10 January children four of whom survived into adulthood. The couple divided their 1834, the only son of Sir Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton and Marie Louise de time between London, Acton’s estate in Shropshire, and houses on the Dalberg. He had an aristocratic and cosmopolitan background. His father Tegernsee in Bavaria and in Cannes on the French Riviera. Acton lost was son of a Catholic English nobleman who came from an old Shropshire his parliamentary seat in 1866, but three years later Gladstone had him family, but who had been Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Naples. His raised to the peerage as Baron Acton. ‘His character,’ Gladstone wrote mother was the only child of the Duke of Dalberg, a German-born French to Queen Victoria, ‘is of the first order, and he is one of the most learned diplomat who had served both Napoleon and the Bourbon kings. The and accomplished, though one of the most modest and unassuming, men Dalbergs were an ancient and distinguished noble family of the Holy of the day.’(6) Acton was the first English Catholic to be created a peer. Roman Empire. John Acton’s father died when he was only three years He also became Marquess of Groppoli in 1888 when an Italian relative old, and in 1840 his mother married Earl Granville, a British politician of his died. After Acton settled in England and gained a seat in the House who was the liberal leader in the House of Lords and three times Foreign of Commons, he soon became known as the country’s foremost liberal Secretary. Acton was raised as a Roman Catholic and was therefore denied Catholic. He was editor of the Catholic monthly Rambler in 1859–1862 entry to Cambridge University. Instead, he went to Munich in 1850 to and of its successor the Home and Foreign Review for two more years, study history under the eminent Catholic historian Ignaz von Döllinger until he came under criticism from the Catholic Church and halted who taught him to view his discipline as science, not literature, impressing publication. With his old teacher Döllinger and other liberal Catholics, upon him the need for a meticulous study of original documents. Acton he fought in vain against the doctrine of papal infallibility, adopted by became a friend of Döllinger and other famous European historians, such the first Vatican Council in 1870. While Döllinger was excommunicated, as Alexis de Tocqueville in France and Leopold von Ranke in Germany. Acton remained a practising Catholic, and did not publicly challenge In 1853 Acton travelled with a relative in the United States and in 1856 the Pope. He devoted himself to reading and gained a reputation as one he went to Russia where he was a member of the official British mission of the most learned men in Europe, but he also lived a rich social life. led by his stepfather Earl Granville at the crowning of Tsar Alexander II. ‘An insatiable, systematic, and effective reader, he was anything but After his studies in Germany and travels around Europe, Acton settled a recluse. No man had a keener zest for the society of his intellectual down on his family estate at Aldenham in Shropshire and was in 1859 equals. No one took a stronger interest in the events of the day, and the elected to the House of Commons. The 25 year old Member of Parliament gossip of the hour. His learning, though vast and genuine, was never became a personal friend of a fellow liberal, the much older Chancellor of obtruded.’(7) Acton spoke French and German as fluently as English, and the Exchequer William Gladstone, who steadily reduced taxes during his also knew Italian and Spanish. He was a passionate book collector and tenure and who was instrumental in making a historic free trade treaty with France in 1860. Gladstone was in 1867 elected Leader of the Liberal (5) Mary Drew [born Gladstone], Acton, Gladstone and Others (London: Nisbet & Co., 1924), p. 2. (6) Quoted by Herbert Paul, Introductory Memoir, Letters from Lord Acton to Mary, Daughter of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone (London: Macmillan, 1913, 2nd ed.), p. xliv. Singer (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1984), p. 173. (7) Ibid., p. ix. 316 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 317

before the middle of the century, when I was reading at Edinburgh and fervently wishing to come to this University. At three colleges I applied for admission, and, as things then were, I was refused by all. Here, from the first, I vainly fixed my hope, and here, in a happier hour, after five-and-forty years, they are at last fulfilled.’(9) In the lecture, he set out his view about the moral duty of historians: ‘I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong.’(10) Acton’s years in Cambridge were probably the happiest of his life. He was in his element and earned the respect of his colleagues one of whom wrote: ‘His incomparable learning, his cosmopolitan outlook, and his moral and philosophical power made us feel that we had found a master who soon proved to be a friend.’(11) Another Cambridge colleague wrote: ‘Neither glamour of reputation nor splendour of achievement blinded him to moral iniquity. He had a wealth of righteous indignation which upon occasion St. Peter’s Cathedral, Rome. (12) at his estate in Aldenham he kept a library A Catholic liberal, Acton blazed out fiercely.’ Acton’s health was however declining, and on 19 of 60,000 books which later found its way to vehemently opposed the June 1902 he passed away at the family chalet on Tegernsee. doctrine of papal infallibility, the University of Cambridge. Acton intended proclaimed in 1870. Photo: to write a comprehensive history of liberty, Alberto Luccaroni. The History of Freedom but never accomplished this, although he delivered two lectures on the topic in 1877, in his dense and elliptical In the first of his two lectures in 1877 on the history of freedom, Acton style. It was said of him that he knew everyone worth knowing and had emphasises that freedom is a practice or tradition rather than an read everything worth reading.(8) abstract ideal. ‘It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilisation.’(13) He In 1892, Acton was appointed by Gladstone as Lord-in-Waiting points out that freedom has many foes and only a few friends and that to Queen Victoria. He became a good friend of the Queen and often the institutions supposed to promote freedom only work if sustained by dined with her and members of her family at Windsor Castle. But his service at the Court only lasted three years, because in 1895 he was appointed Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, on (9) The Study of History, Selected Writings of Lord Acton, Vol. II (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1986), p. 504. the recommendation of the liberal government of Earl Rosebery, (10) Ibid., p. 546. Gladstone’s successor. Acton began his inaugural lecture on an (11) Roland Hill, Lord Acton (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 382. The colleague was G. autobiographical note: ‘Fellow Students—I look back to-day to a time M. Trevelyan. (12) Paul, Memoir, p. lxiv. The colleague was Professor Henry Jackson, Professor of Greek. (13) Freedom in Antiquity, Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. 5. (8) Gertrude Himmelfarb, Introduction, Essays on Freedom and Power by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (Glencoe IL: The Free Press, 1949), p. xix. 318 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 319 a spirit of freedom. His definition of freedom is advantage. The passengers existed for the sake of the ship.’(17) While the domination of one state over another was more common in Antiquity than the assurance that every man shall be protected in a federation of states, the federal check was as familiar to the ancients as doing what he believes his duty against the influence the constitutional, Acton says. ‘If the distribution of power among the of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. The several parts of the State is the most efficient restraint on monarchy, the State is competent to assign duties and draw the line distribution of power among several States is the best check on democracy. between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. By multiplying centres of government and discussion it promotes the Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well- diffusion of political knowledge and the maintenance of healthy and being, it can only give indirect help to fight the battle of independent opinion.’(18) All these checks serve one end: ‘Liberty is not life by promoting the influences which prevail against a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.’(19) temptation,—religion, education, and the distribution While the ancients knew natural law, three liberal ideas were wanting of wealth.(14) from their literature in Acton’s opinion, representative government, emancipation of slaves, and liberty of conscience. Acton discusses the Thus, Acton does not share the belief of Frédéric Bastiat and Herbert political significance of Christianity, declaring the doctrine of self-reliance Spencer that the state should limit itself to preventing injustice. But and self-denial, the foundation of political economy according to him, to the real test of a free society, Acton says, is the amount of security be written as legibly in the New Testament as in Adam Smith’s Wealth enjoyed by minorities. Freedom is only acquired by the doctrines of of Nations. The words of Christ, that we should render unto Caesar the national tradition and the higher law: ‘the principle that a constitution things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s, mark a grows from a root, by process of development, and not of essential new beginning, Acton submits: the separation of secular and religious change; and the principle that all political authorities must be tested powers and the foundation of an energetic institution, the Church, which and reformed according to a code which was not made by man.’(15) could act as a restraint on government. Acton traces liberal ideas far back, and also the threats to liberty. The The ancients knew of liberty, but they rarely practised it, Acton Athenians discovered the perils of unlimited democracy. ‘It is bad to be observes. The German tribes also made a contribution to liberty: oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into Their kings, when they had kings, did not preside play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire at their councils; they were sometimes elective; people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.’(16) In they were sometimes deposed; and they were Rome, there was only one legislator and one authority. ‘What the bound by oath to act in obedience with the general slave was in the hands of his master, the citizen was in the hands of the wish. They enjoyed real authority only in war. This community. The most sacred obligations vanished before the public primitive Republicanism, which admits monarchy as an occasional incident, but holds fast to the

(14) Ibid., p. 7. (17) Ibid., p. 18. (15) Ibid., p. 8. (18) Ibid., p. 21. (16) Ibid., p. 13. (19) Ibid., p. 22. 320 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 321

his power for it not to be abused. In the fourteenth century, the Swiss cast off the yoke of Austria, two long chains of free cities arose in Germany, and municipal liberties grew in Flemish towns, even if sometimes they were short-lived. In seventeenth century France, absolute monarchy was victorious and tried to extinguish liberty, but in Britain the idea of religious tolerance gained ground. ‘That great political idea, sanctifying freedom and consecrating it to God, teaching men to treasure the liberties of others as their own, and to defend them for the love of justice and charity more than as a claim of right, has been the soul of what is great and good in the progress of the last two hundred years.’(22) The British Revolution of 1688 struck a blow at Continental despot­ism, although it led to a government of the gentry rather than a free society, Acton submits. Nevertheless, John Locke’s ideas about separation of powers and resistance to bad rulers, originally formed to justify the British Revolution, inspired the inhabitants in thirteen At his family estate, collective supremacy of all free Aldenham in Shropshire, British colonies on the Eastern Coast of North America. men, of the constituent authority Acton kept a library of 60,000 volumes. He meant over all constituted authorities, is to write a history of freedom. Europe seemed incapable of becoming the home of the remote germ of Parliamentary free States. It was from America that the plain ideas government.(20) that men ought to mind their own business, and that the nation is responsible to Heaven for the acts of These are ideas also found in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, written in the State—ideas long locked in the breast of solitary the 1220s about the struggle between Norwegian kings and their subjects. thinkers, and hidden among Latin folios—burst forth But it was in the conflict between the ecclesiastical and feudal hierarchies like a conqueror upon the world they were destined to of the Middle Ages that a balance was found, not consciously, but slowly transform, under the title of the Rights of Man.(23) and arduously, and on the basis of this balance liberty could grow as an unintended consequence. ‘But although liberty was not the end for which The American Revolution was about a principle, no taxation without they strove, it was the means by which the temporal and the spiritual representation. It was successful because the Americans surrounded power called the nations to their aid.’(21) A political theory was articulated, the popular will with restrictions, according to Acton. The French not least by St. Thomas Aquinas, that no prince is above the law and that if Revolution on the other hand failed: ‘the finest opportunity ever given to he is unfaithful to his duty he can be deposed, but that it is better to abridge the world was thrown away, because the passion for equality made vain the hope of freedom.’(24)

(20) The History of Freedom in Christianity, Selected Writings, Vol. I, pp. 30–31. Cf. Otto von Gierke, Community in Historical Perspective, tran. by Mary Fischer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (22) Ibid., p. 47. 1990) and Daniel Hannan, How We Invented Freedom and Why It Matters (London: Head of Zeus, 2013). (23) Ibid., p. 49. (21) Ibid., p. 33. (24) Ibid., p. 51. 322 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 323

Acton often refers to his predecessors in the conservative-liberal any other end, but on the necessity for human beings to be able to follow tradition. He says that the chain of the tradition that connects Aquinas their own conscience. Therefore, for him religious freedom is the most and Edmund Burke is ‘limited authority and conditional obedience’.(25) important of all freedoms. Acton admires Burke although he grew more critical of him with time: ‘Systems of scientific thought have been built up by famous scholars Egalitarianism, Socialism, and Nationalism on the fragments that fell from his table. Great literary fortunes have been made by men who traded on the hundredth part of him.’(26) Acton Acton identifies three political movements of the nineteenth century also feels close to Alexis de Tocqueville whom he considers one of the which sought to reconstruct society on the basis of past grievances, real or most eminent political philosophers of the nineteenth century.(27) He imagined, ancient or recent: egalitarianism, socialism and nationalism. agrees with Tocqueville’s interpretation of the French Revolution as Their followers rejected the present distribution of power, wealth a continuation of the previous centralisation of France and with his and territories, respectively. The demand for equality was inspired by analysis of the benefits of American decentralisation. ‘Tocqueville was a Rousseau. For egalitarians, democracy meant unlimited sovereignty of Liberal of the purest breed—a Liberal and nothing else, deeply suspicious the people. Acton finds this a corruption of the democratic principle: of democracy and its kindred, equality, centralisation and utilitarianism. Of all writers he is the most widely acceptable, and the hardest to find The true democratic principle, that none shall have fault with. He is always wise, always right.’(28) Acton is less sympathetic power over the people, is taken to mean that none to other conservative-liberal thinkers, somewhat unfairly. Locke is shall be able to restrain or to elude its power. The true in his opinion a protagonist of property rather than liberty, and so is democratic principle, that the people shall not be made David Hume.(29) Acton thinks that Adam Smith’s notion of free contracts to do what it does not like, is taken to mean that it shall between capital and labour has to be revised; it is unjust that all the never be required to tolerate what it does not like. The advantages are on the side of capital.(30) Acton only mentions Frédéric true democratic principle, that every man’s free will Bastiat in passing, but he seems to regard him as a materialist, too shall be as unfettered as possible, is taken to mean that narrowly focused on economic freedom.(31) Acton is critical of Herbert the free will of the collective people shall be fettered in Spencer for arguing for liberty in terms of evolution; in the end, Acton nothing.(33) believes, liberty and evolution are bound to conflict.(32) Acton’s liberalism is based not on the hope of economic gain, or happiness, or evolution, or For Acton, as for Tocqueville, democracy is not the ultimate end. It is a means to the ultimate­ end, liberty. Democracy should be one of many safeguards against despotism,­ alongside separation of powers, (25) Ibid., p. 41. an independent judiciary, a free press, spontaneous associations and a (26) Letter from Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone, Cannes, 27 December 1880. Letters of Lord Acton, p. 43. strong civic spirit. It should imply equal freedom, not equal submission. (27) Freedom in Antiquity, Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. Acton holds socialism to be another threat to liberty, defining it in (28) John E. E. Dalberg-Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2000), p. 308. the traditional way as demand for common property. He points out that (29) Freedom in Christianity, Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. 48 Greek philosopher Plato, Fathers of the Church, the mendicant friars of (30) Letter from Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone, Cannes, 24 April 1881. Letters of Lord Acton, p. 72. (31) Report on Current Events, July 1860, Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. 489. (32) Selections from the Acton Legacy: Threats to Liberty, Selected Writings, Vol. III, pp. 500–501. (33) Sir Erskine May’s Democracy in Europe, Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. 80. 324 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 325

the horrors of our factory system.’(36) Modern research has shown that Friedrich Engels greatly exaggerated ‘the horrors of the factory system’ in his 1845 book, The Condition of the Working Class in England.(37) It is not true, as Engels asserted, that the Industrial Revolution had made urban workers worse off. Of course, at the early stages of industrial development their condition left much to be desired, but it was still better than in the agricultural societies of the past. This was recognised by some of Engels’ contemporaries, such as Lord Macaulay who mocked the fantasies of the poet Robert Southey:

Mr. Southey has found out a way, he tells us, in which the effects of manufactures and agriculture may be compared. And what is this way? To stand on a hill, to In 1879 the Gladstones visited the Middle Ages, Italian monk Campanella the Actons at their chalet by look at a cottage and a factory, and to see which is the and French bishop Fénelon all favoured the Bavarian lake Tegernsee. prettier. Does Mr. Southey think that the body of the Seated from left: William common property in the belief that they were Gladstone, Elisabeth (Lily) English peasantry live, or ever lived, in substantial or removing temptations and the corruption of Acton, Catherine Gladstone ornamented cottages, with box-hedges, flower-gardens, (holding a fan), Countess the soul. Socialism was practised among the Anna von Arco-Valley (Acton’s beehives, and orchards? If not, what is his parallel Essenes and the Incas. ‘The Incas had an exact mother-in-law), Leopoldine worth?(38) (Tini, his sister-in-law), Ignaz census, a thing unknown to the Spaniards. von Döllinger and Acton. Standing behind Gladstone, It was a system of communistic distribution from left: Herbert Gladstone Despite many hardships, caused not least by wars and social upheaval, of land. And the most terrible despotism and Richard Acton. Standing opportunities increased for urban workers in the first half of the (34) on the terrace, from left: Lady on earth.’ In the twentieth century, Charlotte Blennerhassett, nineteenth century. Engels’ evidence was incomplete, and he was French political philosopher Louis Baudin Mary Gladstone (glancing at writing shortly after an economic depression in 1842. The standard of an album) and Acton’s wife, reaffirmed Acton’s conclusion in a thorough Lady Marie, with their child living fluctuated in nineteenth century England, but in the early 1850s it analysis of the socialist empire of the Incas. It Jeanne (Simmy). Photo: Karl was substantially above that of 1800.(39) Hahn. was a rigid, highly regulated society where the inhabitants were treated like a flock of sheep by their shepherds, the Incas; arguably, they enjoyed some economic (36) Socialism, Selected Writings, Vol. III, p. 563. (35) (37) Friedrich Engels, Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England (1845), Karl Marx and Friedrich security, but they had no freedom. Another point which Acton makes Engels, Werke, Vol. 2 (Berlin: Dietz, 1945), pp. 225–506. about socialism is less plausible: ‘Their best writer, Engels, made known (38) Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, Southey’s Colloquies on Society (1830), Critical and Historical Essays contributed to the Edinburgh Review, Vol. 1 (London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1848), p. 233. (39) Capitalism and the Historians, ed. by Friedrich A. Hayek (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (34) Selections from the Acton Legacy: Socialism, Selected Writings of Lord Acton, Vol. III 1954); The Long Debate on Poverty: Eight Essays on Industrialisation and ‘The Condition of England’, (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1988), p. 562. ed. by Norman Gash (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1972). In England, the chief protagonists in a debate in the early 1960s on ‘pauperisation’ were Marxist Eric Hobsbawm and Oxford historian (35) Louis Baudin, L’Empire socialiste des Inka (Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie, 1928); A Socialist Empire: Ronald Hartwell. Hobsbawm had to admit that pauperisation ‘while not implausible, cannot be proved’ the Incas of Peru, tran. by Katherine Woods (Princeton NJ: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1961). and therefore he invoked social factors like ‘mass unhappiness’ and also said that ‘the poets saw things 326 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 327

When Karl Marx published his Capital, Acton read it and found it Nationality, Acton holds, is an essential, but not a supreme element in remarkable, ‘as the Koran of the new socialists’.(40) While Acton believes determining the forms of the state. Liberals should aim at diversity and that some of the grievances on which socialism feeds are real, he thinks not at uniformity. They should respect existing conditions of political they have to be addressed within the framework of a free society. Socialism life, not the aspirations of an ideal future. A free society should be one demands centralisation and will inevitably lead to despotism. ‘The danger where many different nations would co-exist in one state. ‘The presence is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. of different nations under the same sovereignty is similar in its effect to The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over the independence of the Church in the State.’(44) Acton favours states faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the like the British and Austrian Empires which ‘include various distinct discharge of a moral obligation.’(41) But Acton regards nationalism as being nationalities without oppressing them’.(45) even more reprehensible than socialism. He defines it as the demand that nation and state should coincide and suggests that it was awakened The Case for National Liberalism by the partition of Poland in the late eighteenth century, and reinforced by the French Revolution, not least in response to the aggression of the Acton’s critique of nationalism is not as convincing, I think, as his revolutionaries. By 1861, nationalism had become an established doctrine, rejection of egalitarianism and socialism. It was understandable, with John Stuart Mill writing that it was ‘in general a necessary condition however. Acton was cosmopolitan, half-British, one-fourth German and of free institutions, that the boundaries of governments should coincide one-fourth Italian, speaking German and French as fluently as his mother in the main with those of nationalities’.(42) Acton rejects Mill’s doctrine as tongue, English, living for most of his life not only in England, but also in being illiberal. What is important is not that political power is held by our Bavaria and on the French Riviera. It is therefore not surprising that he compatriots rather than foreigners, but that it is circumscribed, limited: was hostile to the militant nationalism which he witnessed as an adult. Many liberal thinkers share Acton’s aversion to nationalism. In some Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme cases it may have been because of their personal experiences. Ludwig end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek and Karl Popper were German-speaking safety or the power of the country, the greatest citizens of the Habsburg Empire which collapsed in the First World happiness of the greatest number, or the support of War. They saw that the Empire, despite its many shortcomings, was a any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time better guardian of liberty than most of its successor states, and that the inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its doctrine of national self-determination was not followed anyway in the realisation the limitation of the public authority, for formation of these states. A large Hungarian minority suddenly found liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and itself in Romania; in Czechoslovakia Slovaks and Germans were forced provokes no sincere opposition.(43) into a union with the dominant Czechs; and in Yugoslavia Slovenes and Croats were likewise forced into a union with the dominant Serbs. The which the vulgar economists did not’. Eric Hobsbawm, The Standard of Living during the Industrial author of a well-argued denunciation of nationalism, Elie Kedourie, Revolution: A Discussion, The Economic History Review, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1963), pp. 119–134. was brought up as a member of the Jewish community in Baghdad, (40) Letter from Lord Acton to William Gladstone, Aldenham Park, 17 November 1873, Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, ed. by John N. Figgis and Reginald V. Laurence (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1917), p. 169.

(41) Letter from Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone, Cannes, 24 April 1881, Letters from Lord Acton, p. 73. (44) Ibid., p. 425. (42) John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (1861). Collected Works, Vol. XIX, (45) Ibid., p. 432. ed. by John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), p. 548. (43) Acton, Nationality, Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. 424. 328 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 329

Acton’s argument against nationalism is weakened by the example of the small nations of Europe. In 1905, Norway chose to renounce her union with Sweden because the Norwegians thought of themselves as Norwegians, not Swedes. They had a distinct identity and believed that it could be better preserved in their own state than in a union with Sweden. To their credit, the Swedes did not use force against their much smaller neighbour. In 1917, Finland proclaimed her independence. She did not want to remain a self-governing part of the Russian Empire. The Finns had resisted Russification attempts in the nineteenth century. They thought of themselves as Finns, not Russians. Temporarily weakened by war and revolution, the Russian government had to recognise Finland’s independence, although in 1939 Stalin attempted to annex the country again, but changed course when he realised the high cost of trying to subdue the hardy Finns. In 1918, Iceland, long a Danish dependency, Norwegian nationalism which had been tolerated in the Ottoman was not about oppressing in friendly negotiations with Denmark decided to establish a sovereign Empire and destroyed by Arab nationalism. foreigners: it was about state. The Icelanders thought of themselves as Icelanders. To the protecting Norwegian He saw nationalism as an attempt to impose identity. Painting by Adolph bewilderment of their well-meaning Danish rulers, they did not want to Tidemand and Hans Gude, an end upon society instead of searching Bridal Procession on the become Danes, although Iceland was then much poorer than Denmark. for principles which would enable mutual Hardangerfjord. Likewise, the Baltic nations founded their own states as soon as adjustment of individuals and groups.(46) they could, after the Bolshevik Revolution, although the Russians Scholars from the United Kingdom and occupied and annexed their countries anew in 1940. As soon as the United States also tend to dismiss nationalism, sometimes rather another opportunity presented itself, when the Soviet Union was contemptuously. But their words may belie their deeds. They feel no collapsing in 1991, they reaffirmed their independence, regarding the need to present themselves as nationalists because their mother tongue long Soviet rule as illegitimate. This was because the three nations is the international language of communication, while their countries thought of themselves as Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians. They are large, powerful and prosperous, and have not suffered humiliating did not want to be Russians. In all these instances, the nation more military defeats on the scale of, say, Germany, France and Italy. In fact, or less coincided with the state (although there were small Sami most inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon countries identify strongly with their populations in Norway and Finland, and German, Russian and Jewish homelands and are proud of their heritage. Taking their nationality for minorities in the Baltic countries). granted, they do not expand words on it. Contrary to what Acton seems to suggest, a case can be made for Of course, domestic oppression is no better than foreign one, as the liberty thriving better in small and homogeneous societies than in larger history of some ‘liberated’ former colonies—such as Algeria, Rwanda and heterogeneous ones. This is because civil society may be stronger and even India—in the twentieth century demonstrates. Nevertheless, in smaller societies, with greater trust, transparency and spontaneous cooperation and cohesion and thus with less need for compulsion. Small countries usually keep relatively small security forces and rarely (46) Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1960). pursue an adventurous foreign policy. They also tend to have more open 330 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 331 economies, perhaps by necessity rather than virtue, as they can hardly Acton’s belief that in a large country freedom would best be served be self-sufficient.(47) Indeed, Acton overlooked the fact that economic by her subdivision into many self-governing units serves to explain his integration may facilitate political disintegration, because in the global position on the American Civil War. Many have found it hard to accept market small nations can benefit from division of labour and free trade that this champion of liberty unequivocally sided with the secessionist without having to join larger political units. The real challenge for states of the South. Was he not condoning slavery? The answer is that small states is however that they are powerless on their own against Acton did not regard the Civil War as being about slavery. It was according aggressive large states, as the sad examples of Tibet and Crimea show. to him about states’ rights. In order to maintain America as a free society Therefore they have to enter into alliances either with other small it was essential to protect the autonomy of the states which had formed states or with more powerful states. the union. This was clearly expressed in a letter Acton wrote to General The advantages, and disadvantages, of small states were seen by Robert E. Lee, who had led the army of the South: both Hume and Tocqueville. ‘A small commonwealth is the happiest government in the world within itself, because every thing lies under I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the eye of the rulers: But it may be subdued by great force from without,’ the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession Hume argued, and therefore there have to be many almost self- filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as governing counties in one large country. ‘This scheme seems to have the redemption of Democracy. The institutions of all the advantages both of a great and a little commonwealth.’(48) For your Republic have not exercised on the old world Tocqueville, ‘small nations have at all times been the cradle of political the salutary and liberating influence which ought to liberty.’(49) But the American ‘federal system has been created to unite have belonged to them, by reason of those defects the various advantages that result from the large and the small sizes and abuses of principle which the Confederate of nations’.(50) In Tocqueville’s words, ‘The Union is free and happy Constitution was expressly and wisely calculated like a small nation, glorious and strong like a large one.’(51) Indeed, to remedy. I believed that the example of that great Acton might have agreed. He is concerned about centralisation, the Reform would have blessed all the races of mankind by unification of state and nation. He would not have worried as much over establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers a federation of many small states, such as the United States of America and disorders of Republics. Therefore I deemed before the Civil War or Switzerland, or over a defence alliance of many that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our states, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO. Perhaps progress, and our civilization.(52) the Austrian Empire would have survived if it had been subdivided early enough into many self-governing units, similar to Swiss cantons. The letter also shows that what was uppermost­ in Acton’s mind was the impact of the Civil War on Europe. ‘We must always remember that what concerned him most was the war’s significance for a continent where (47) Hannes H. Gissurarson, In Defence of Small States (Brussels: New Direction, 2016). slavery had vanished long ago,’ a modern scholar points out. ‘At a time (48) David Hume, Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (1777), ed. by when aggressive nationalism, centralization, and bureaucracy defined Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, , p. 525. the modern state, Acton was a visionary who looked forward to a federal (49) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (1835), tran. by James T. Schleifer (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 2010), pp. 255–256. (50) Ibid., p. 260. (52) Letter from Lord Acton to Robert E. Lee, Bologna 4 November 1866. Acton-Lee Correspondence, (51) Ibid., p. 263. Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. 363. 332 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 333

could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.(54)

It was only in the beginning of 1863 that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, that all slaves within the ‘rebellious states’ were freed. There were important qualifications: slaves in the loyal border states or in those Southern states already occupied by the North were not freed, and the freedom promised would only come after the North’s military victory. Nevertheless, in the minds of many it changed the nature of the American Civil War. Acton is a firm opponent of slavery, and his advice to the South was to free the slaves and to enlist some of them in its army. ‘If, then, slavery is to be the criterion which shall determine the significance of the civil war, our verdict ought, I think, to be, that by one part of the nation it was wickedly defended, and by the other as wickedly removed. Different indeed must our judgment be if we examine the value of secession as a phase in the history of political doctrine.’(55) Slavery

While Acton opposed slavery, should be abolished in the United States, Acton submits, not by war, but Europe that lay far in the future.’(53) But it he thought that the American by skilful statesmanship, not suddenly, but gradually. Civil War was chiefly about had to be a federal Europe that respected states’ rights. Painting by Although Acton deplores slavery, he prefers that some be free, sovereignty and accepted secession. Eastman Johnson, Negro Life even if others remain unfree, rather than that all be unfree. To see at the South. Acton is not alone in his interpretation his argument about states’ rights more clearly, consider Britain’s of the Civil War. The leader of the Northern official position on slavery in the nineteenth century. In 1807, she had states, President Abraham Lincoln, wrote in 1862: outlawed slave trade by British subjects and even employed the Royal Navy to intercept slave ships on open sea. But she did not invade other If there be those who would not save the Union, unless countries in order to force them to abolish slavery, neither the United they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree States before abolition in 1863 nor, say, Brazil where all slaves were with them. If there be those who would not save the freed as late as 1888. It is only if sovereignty is denied that stronger Union unless they could at the same time destroy states can force weaker ones to abolish slavery, or for that matter slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object any other social evil, and this was precisely the issue in the Civil War, in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either according to Acton: Had the states of the South the right to uphold a to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union practice which a majority in the North rightly regarded as unjust and without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could evil? To illustrate his case, Acton mentions the Swiss Civil War. In the save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I

(54) Quoted in Report on the Civil War in America (1862), Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. 339. (53) Christopher Clausen, Lord Acton and the Lost Cause, The American Scholar, Vol. 69, No. 1 (2000), p. 58. (55) The Civil War in America: Its Place in History, Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. 277. 334 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 335 early 1840s, Anti-Catholics had gained a majority in the Federal Diet, The Moral Duty of Historians at the same time as they dominated some cantons. They closed some monasteries and convents and seized their properties. In response, For Acton, the transformation of history from a branch of literature into Lucerne, governed by Catholics, invited the Jesuit Order to oversee a scientific discipline rests upon three main principles. Historians have education in the canton. This led to an attack on Lucerne from an Anti- to seek truth rather than literary effect; they should prefer primary to Catholic militia. Most of the Catholic cantons consequently formed secondary sources, but evaluate all of them critically; and they should an alliance, the Sonderbund, in 1845. The Federal Diet declared the strive to be impartial.(59) ‘By going from book to manuscript, and from alliance unconstitutional and sent an army against it in November 1847. library to archive, we exchange doubt for certainty,’ Acton observes.(60) After a short war, it defeated the Sonderbund. A new constitution was The principle of impartiality implies that they should be no respecters adopted which changed Swiss from a federation of semi-independent of power or wealth, as Acton famously argues in a letter to another states, the cantons, to something approaching a federal state, although historian, Anglican bishop Mandell Creighton: the cantons retained much of their earlier autonomy. The Jesuits were banished from Switzerland, and a Federal Assembly replaced I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge the Federal Diet. The contested issue was whether Jesuits could be in Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable charge of education in a particular canton, but the general principle at presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any stake was that of canton autonomy. presumption it is the other way against holders of While centralisation in the wake of civil wars has not been as power, increasing as the power increases. Historic detri­mental to liberty in Switzerland or in the United States as responsibility has to make up for the want of legal Acton feared, he was certainly right that the American Civil War did responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute woefully little to improve the condition of Blacks in the South. The power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always defeated white majority there took revenge on the Blacks by making bad men, even when they exercise influence and not them second-class citizens and implementing racial segregation, as authority: still more when you superadd the tendency immoral and inhumane as Apartheid in South Africa. The spell of race or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no was only broken in the mid-twentieth century. In Brazil, by contrast, worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of the abolition of slavery was gradual and not attained in a civil war that it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism left 700,000 people dead and a large part of the country in ruins, as in and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high the United States.(56) Race relations after abolition were much better in festival, and the end learns to justify the means.(61) Brazil than in the South of the United States.(57) There the ‘mixture of races’ took place that Acton finds desirable.(58) It is not only historical truth which is objective, but also the moral code, according to Acton, with no exemptions for the mighty:

(56) In 1831, all slaves entering Brazil from abroad were declared free, although the law was not implemented consistently. In 1871, all new-born children of slaves were declared free. In 1885, slaves over 60 years old were freed. When slavery was finally abolished formally in 1888, only one-fourth of the Black population was still enslaved. (59) Acton, The Study of History, Selected Writings, Vol. II, pp. 527–533. (57) Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization (60) Selections from the Acton Legacy: History, Selected Writings, Vol. III, p. 624. From the article (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). Notes on Archival Researchers 1864–1868. (58) Acton, Nationality, Selected Writings, Vol. I, p. 430. (61) Acton-Creighton Correspondence, Selected Writings, Vol. II, p. 383. 336 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 337

Acton rejects the whole idea of Staatsräson, that princes, elected or not, should be judged more leniently than their subjects; that there are different moral standards for those in power and others. A murder is no less a crime if committed by a person in high office than an ordinary citizen. Historians therefore perform an important function, Acton believes, ensuring that rulers would not ‘escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong’. French writer François- René de Chateaubriand made a similar point about the moral duty, and importance, of historians:

When in the silence of abjection, the only sounds that can be heard are the chains of slaves and the voice of the collaborator, when everything trembles before the tyrant, when it is as dangerous to curry his favour as to merit his disgrace, the historian appears, charged with

History can be a burden as the vengeance of the peoples. Nero prospered in vain, The inflexible integrity of the well as an inspiration. It is for Tacitus was already born during the Empire.(63) written in blood no less than moral code is, to me, the secret in ink. A French teacher points of the authority, the dignity, the to the regions (Alsace and Some modern Neros saw this challenge. Before Nazi Germany invaded Lorraine) lost in the war with utility of history. If we may debase German states in 1870–1871, Poland in 1939, Adolf Hitler gave a secret speech to military leaders at the currency for the sake of genius, encouraging his students to his home in the Bavarian Alps. ‘Our strength consists in our speed and reconquer them. How many or success, or rank, or reputation, of them lost their lives in trying in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to we may debase it for the sake of a to do this? Painting by Albert slaughter—with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him Bettannier, The Black Spot. man’s influence, of his religion, of solely the founder of a state. It’s a matter of indifference to me what a his party, of the good cause which weak western European civilization will say about me,’ Hitler exclaimed. prospers by his credit and suffers by his disgrace. Then ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’(64) history ceases to be a science, an arbiter of controversy, The Romanian-born American writer Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor a guide of the wanderer, the upholder of that moral and Nobel Laureate in Literature, observed that the executioner always standard which the powers of earth, and religion itself, tend constantly to depress. It serves where it ought to reign; and it serves the worst better than the purest.(62) (63) Review of Voyage pittoresque et historique de l’Espagne by Alexandre de Laborde, Mercure de France 7 July 1807. Napoleon Bonaparte understood against whom the comment was really directed and angrily banished Chateaubriand from Paris. (64) Louis P. Lochner, What About Germany? (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1942), pp. 11–12. Lochner was an American reporter in Berlin who obtained the minutes of the meeting from an undisclosed (62) Ibid., p. 384. source, most likely Wilhelm Canaris, Chief of the German Military Intelligence Service. 338 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 339 kills twice, the second time with silence.(65) of twentieth century totalitarianism with sensitivity and sympathy for Most people may know about the tragic fate of the Armenians and the victims and lay the responsibility for those horrors where it belongs. the Jews. But what about the Ingrians? I first came across them when I However, even in remote Iceland, some historians have tried to trivialise, was editing the reprinted memoirs of an Ingrian priest who in 1930 had dismiss or ignore inconvenient truths and ‘kill with silence’, as Wiesel escaped from the Gulag.(66) They were the people living in Ingria along would say. Examples abound, but I shall just give two from a widely used the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland. They spoke their own language, textbook on modern history by two Icelandic left-wing historians. close to and mutually intelligible with Finnish and Estonian. They were The first example is about the Baltic countries. The authors briefly never able to establish their own state like their neighbours and cousins, note their 1940 occupation, without using that word: ‘The Soviet Union and after Tsar Peter I built St. Petersburg in the early eighteenth century had moved its furthest front to the West when it seized the Eastern Part Russians began to move in droves to their territory. At the time of the of Poland. In 1940, the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Bolshevik Revolution the number of Ingrians was nevertheless a little were annexed to the Soviet Union as member republics, and the same over 140,000. In the Soviet era many Ingrians were killed or deported, year Romania had to cede Bessarabia to the Soviet Union.’(70) But when while others fled to Finland, and now they have largely disappeared. Many it is said that the Baltic states were annexed, an important truth is left other small nations have sadly suffered a similar fate, especially if they out: they were occupied. They did not join the Soviet Union of their own have not had a state to protect their collective identity. Some have barely accord. The authors mention the Baltic states again in their account of survived, for example the three Baltic nations that were subject to intense the end of the Second World War: ‘In Yalta, the West recognised de facto Russification under Soviet occupation. Other nations still face a challenge, that the Baltic States and the Eastern part of Poland would remain a such as the Tibetans under Chinese occupation and the Kurds in the part of the Soviet Union and that Eastern Europe would remain in the mountains between Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Soviet sphere of influence. In the same way, Stalin took it as given that Historians cannot bring back disappeared nations, but they can try the Western part of the continent where the British and the American to keep their memory alive. They can make invisible people visible. armies conquered Germans would be in their sphere of influence.’(71) The History has a tendency to change persons into numbers: We are told authors do not point out the widely divergent senses which ‘spheres of that almost four million people perished in Stalin’s Ukrainian famine,(67) influence’ had on the one hand for the democratically­ elected leaders of and that Hitler had almost six million Jews killed,(68) and that forty-five the West, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, and on the other million people lost their lives in Mao’s famine from 1958 to 1962.(69) But hand for the dictator in the Kremlin. Moreover, neither the United States historians must change the numbers into persons again, if they want nor the United Kingdom ever recognised the Baltic states as parts of the to heed Acton’s advice. For example, they have to describe the horrors Soviet Union. The two authors finally mention independence move­ments in the Baltic countries: ‘Increased freedom­ of speech, however, woke up old nationalism­ in many Soviet republics. The nationalist movement was (65) Quoted by Mounir Bouchenski, Breaking the Silence: Sites of Memory, World Heritage Newsletter, strongest in the three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but No. 23 (September-October 1999). it was also present elsewhere. Finally the Baltic countries declared their (66) Aatami Kuortti, Thjonusta, Thraelkun, Flotti [Service, Servitude, and Escape] (Reykjavik: Kristilegt studentafelag, 1938). I had it reprinted in 2016. (67) Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (London: Allen Lane, 2017). In addition, about two million died in other parts of the Soviet Union, mostly in Kazakhstan. (70) Gunnar Karlsson and Sigurdur Ragnarsson, Nyir timar. Saga Islands og umheimsins fra lokum 18. aldar til arthusundamota [Modern Times. The History of Iceland and the World from the End of 18th (68) Martin Gilbert, Never Again: A History of the Holocaust (New York: Universe, 2000). Century and to the New Millennium] (Reykjavik: Mal og menning, 2006), p. 246. The authors use the Icelandic verb ‘innlima’ which means incorporate, but can mean annex. (69) Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of Chin’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010). (71) Ibid., p. 263. 340 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 341

When Stalin had acquired all power in 1928, he started comprehensive industrialisation on the basis of so-called five years’ plans, while establishing collective farms in the rural areas. Collectivisation was implemented against the wishes of a large part of the farmers and this took a toll on agricultural production. Industrial production increased however very rapidly in the next decades, so that in 1940 the Soviet Union was the next largest industrial power in the world.(74)

It is astonishing that any historians could say that collectivisation was implemented ‘against the wishes of a large part of the farmers’ and that this ‘took a toll on agricultural production’, when the fact of the matter was that collectivisation was brutally forced upon farmers, many of whom were killed or deported to Siberia, while the result was a famine that claimed the lives of almost four million people in Ukraine alone. The French Queen Catherine independence and seceded from the Soviet de’Medici leaves the Louvre authors cannot feign ignorance. As their book was published in 2006, Union as they had actually the right to do on 24 August 1572, after they had access to modern research on the Ukrainian famine, for example the St. Bartholomew’s Day (75) according to the constitution. After this other massacre of protestants. A in the Black Book of Communism. The famine had also been widely republics followed the same path.’(72) This is murder is a murder, even if reported in the Icelandic press in the 1930s, and mentioned in many organised or condoned by (76) highly misleading. The Baltic countries had people in high office, Acton books and articles published thereafter. In this book, required reading no real right to secede, whatever the letter holds. Painting by Édouard for many Icelandic students, the millions who fell victim to communist Debat-Ponsan, One Morning said. They were occupied and all resistance to at the Gates of the Louvre. policies in Ukraine are killed again, with silence. (Needless to say, the the communist regime was suppressed. The authors do not mention, either, the famine of 1921–1922 in Russia which authors should have known better. In 1955, a well-written and moving cost five million lives.) Of course a textbook cannot cover everything. account of Estonia’s tragic fate was published in Icelandic.(73) But these Icelandic historians seem to have no sense of proportion. My second example from this textbook is about the Ukrainian famine Whereas they do not even mention the Ukrainian famine, elsewhere in 1932–1933, one of the greatest atrocities of the twentieth century. This in the book they spend no less than ten lines on criticising Senator treatment is conspicuous by its absence: the famine is not mentioned at Joseph McCarthy’s campaign in the early 1950s against communists in all. The authors write:

(74) Karlsson and Ragnarsson, Nyir timar, p. 227. My italics. (75) Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). I translated it into Icelandic, Svartbok kommunismans (Reykjavik: University of Iceland (72) Ibid., p. 292. Press, 2009). (73) Ants Oras, Orlaganott yfir Eystrasaltslondum [Baltic Eclipse] (Reykjavik: Almenna bokafelagid, (76) For example, Arthur Koestler et al., Gudinn sem brast [The God that Failed], tran. by Hersteinn 1955). I had it reprinted in 2016 when 25 years had passed since Iceland was the first country to Palsson (Reykjavik: Studlaberg, 1950); Victor Kravchenko, Eg kaus frelsid [I Chose Freedom], tran. by reaffirm her old recognition of the Baltic states. Larus Johannesson (Seydisfjordur: Prentsmidja Austurlands, 1951). 342 Lord Acton (1834–1902) Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 343 the U.S. federal administration—a campaign by an individual which was Devil asked them what they had achieved. One said that he had taught eventually suspended and in which nobody lost his or her life.(77) mankind to lie. The Devil was pleased. The second said that he had taught When the authors add that ‘industrial production increased however mankind to steal. The Devil was mightily pleased. The third was the very rapidly in the next decades’, they seem to invoke the cynical excuse of smallest and least respected demon. He said: ‘I have convinced mankind despots, that omelettes cannot be made without breaking eggs. Numbers that you don’t exist.’ The Devil was happiest with this little demon and on economic growth in the Soviet Union were highly questionable, not said that from now on he would be second in rank in Hell. Modern man in only because they may have been falsified, but also because they did not prosperous, peaceful Western societies, especially in remote places like always reflect reality: Accumulation of capital in the munitions industry Iceland, has little awareness of evil. It is something that you read about did not improve living standards of ordinary people. Moreover, economic in books or see in films. But evil still exists, and if we are to fight it, we growth can indeed take place without breaking people. Consider two have to be aware of it. ‘History is not a master but a teacher. It is full of comparable periods in the Soviet Union and the United States. In 1928, evil,’ Acton remarked.(80) His admonitions to historians are still relevant. eleven years after the Bolshevik Revolution, GDP (gross domestic product) per capita in the Soviet Union was $1,370, increasing in the next twelve years, till 1940, to $2,144, or by $774. In 1876, eleven years after the Civil War, GDP per capita in the United States was $2,570, increasing in the next twelve years, till 1888, to $3,282, by $712, or about the same as in the comparable period in Soviet history.(78) The United States was, and is, an imperfect society, but this economic growth took place without terror or famines. I could give many other examples of left-wing historians in Iceland trying to trivialise, dismiss or ignore twentieth century totalitar­ian­ism.(79) However, while they may partly be motivated by political fanaticism, some of their oversights can be attributed to the sheer thoughtlessness of people in sheltered places. In April 1979 I had a discussion with Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski who was visiting Iceland. Somewhat naively, I asked him whether our present troubles stemmed from the fact that in the mind of modern man, God was dead. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘The problem is that in the mind of modern man the Devil is dead.’ I then told him an old Icelandic folktale about three demons that the Devil had sent to mankind in order to corrupt it. They returned to Hell after a year. The

(77) Karlsson and Ragnarsson, Nyir timar, p. 268. (78) Figures, all in 1990 Geary-Khamis dollars, are from the Maddison Project on historical statistics. http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/maddison-project/home.htm, 2013. (79) They are quite similar to the cases in the US discussed by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage (San Francisco, California: Encounter Books, 2003). (80) History, Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 620. Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 345

INDEX

Acton, Elisabeth 324 322 Acton, Jeanne 324 Bastiat, Marie 216 Acton, Lord John (Marquess of Groppoli) 8–11, 35n, Bastiat, Marie-Clotilde 217 36, 312–357 Bastiat, Pierre 216 Acton, Marie 315, 324 Baudin, Louis 324 Acton, Marie Louise 314 Bauer, Lord Peter 155 Acton, Baron Richard 324 Beatrix of the Netherlands 151 Acton, Sir Ferdinand 314 Beaumont, Count Gustave de 244, 247 Adam from Bremen 13 Becker, Gary S. 75n Adlersparre, Count Georg 174, 175 Bedford, Francis Russell, Duke of 133, 134 Agnarsdottir, Anna, see Anna Agnarsdottir Benn, Tony (Viscount Stansgate) 253 Albertus Magnus of Cologne 36, 37 Bentham, Jeremy 39, 287, 289, 294 Alexander II, Russian Emperor, 314 Bergmann, Arni 77 Ampère, Jean-Jacques 245n Berlin, Sir Isaiah 185, 194, 195 Andersson, Theodore M. 26n, 32n Bernandino of Siena 52 Anker, Carsten 111, 175 Bessard, Pierre 213n Anker, Peter 111 Bildt, Carl 20n Anna Agnarsdottir 111n Birgir T. Runolfsson 80n, 299n Annandale, George Johnstone, Marquess of 85 Bismarck, Prince Otto von 179, 182 Antipater of Tarsus 49 Bisset, Robert 131n Antonino of Florence 52 Bjarnason, Bjorn, see Bjorn Bjarnason Applebaum, Anne 338n Bjartmarsson, Sigfus, see Sigfus Bjartmarsson Aquinas, St. Thomas 7, 9, 10, 34–55, 57, 63, 65, 236, Bjorn Bjarnason 46 320, 322 Blanqui, Jérôme-Adolphe 219 Aquino, Landulf of 36 Blennerhassett, Lady Charlotte 324 Aquino, Theodora of 36 Blum, Walter J. 47 Arco-Valley, Anna von 324 Boghossian, Peter 271n Arco-Valley, Leopoldine von 324 Bonaparte, Louis-Napoleon 220, 249 Ari the Learned (Thorgilsson) 313 Bonaparte, Napoleon 145, 175, 185, 188, 189, 220, 236, Arie, Sophie 149n 243, 244, 248 Arinbjorn (Thorisson) 29 Bonnier, Albert 178 Aristotle 37, 65, 252 Borges, Jorge Luis 31 Arnljotur Olafsson 238 Bouchenski, Mounir 338n Arnvid the Blind 20 Brennan, Geoffrey 71n, 292n Arthur, Sir Geoffrey 275 Bright, John 217 Asgerd Bjornsdaughter 29 Brinton, C. Crane 281n Athelstan, King of England, 29 Broddi Thorleifsson 25 Austin, John 39n Broglie, Louis, Duke of 189 Azevedo, André 53n Broglie, Victor, Duke of 189 Azpilcueta, Martín de 54 Brown, Nancy Marie 31 Bagge, Sverre 20n Bruce (Sigurdsson), Earl of Orkney, 22 Bajer, Fredrik 238 Brunswick, Augusta, Duchess of 186 Banke, Niels 111n Brunswick, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of 186 Barton, Ruth 285n Buccleuch, Henry Scott, Duke of 105, 106, 111 Bastiat, Frédéric 7, 11, 176, 214–241, 278, 279, 318, Buchanan, James M. 9, 10, 71n, 80n, 173, 241, 258, 346 Index Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 347

259n, 292, 298 Croce, Benedetto 203 Gibbon, Edward 130 Herdis Bersadaughter 15 Buck, Carrie 308, 309 Cyrus, Persian Emperor 92 Gierke, Otto von 18n Hertford, Francis Seymour-Conway, Earl of 85 Burckhardt, Jacob 29, 30 Dalberg, Emmerich Joseph, Duke of 314 Gilbert, Martin 339n Hierta, Lars Johan 175, 177, 237 Burke, Edmund 7–11, 42, 67, 68, 100, 128–161, 185, Dalén, Gustaf 178 Gilmour, Sir Ian 100, 101 Hill, Roland 317n 195, 202, 252, 276–278, 291, 292n, 322 Darwin, Charles 96, 284, 288, 304 Gissur Thorvaldsson, Earl of Iceland, 17, 25 Himmelfarb, Gertrude 316n Burke, Jane 130 Defoe, Daniel 229n Gissurarson, Hannes, see Hannes H. Gissurarson Hirst, Elin 46 Burke, Mary 130 Demsetz, Harold 117n Gladstone, Catherine 324 Hitler, Adolf 92, 337–339 Burke, Richard (father of Edmund) 130 Depont, Charles Jean-François 132 Gladstone, Viscount Herbert 324 Hobbes, Thomas 39, 66 Burke, Richard (son of Edmund) 133 Devlin, Patrick 40n Gladstone, Mary 315n, 324 Hobsbawn, Eric 326n Caesar, Julius 42n Dikötter, Frank 71n, 145n, 339n Gladstone, William 11, 314, 315, 324 Hoiles, Raymond C. 238 Campanella, Tommaso 324 Diogenes from Babylon 49 Gladwell, Malcolm 254n Holbach, Paul-Henri T., Baron d’ 86 Canaris, Wilhelm 337n Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 148 Goldsmith, Oliver 130 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 300, 308 Capaldi, Nicholas 203n Dræbye, Frants 112 Goodrich, Pierre F. 16n Holst, Hans Peter 174 Carl XIV Johan of Sweden 175 Dunbar, Robin I. 124n Gorbachev, Mikhail 276 Holt, Andreas 111, 112 Carnegie, Andrew 286 Döllinger, Ignaz von 314, 315, 324 Gordon, H. Scott 76 Homer 31 Cassel, Gustav 179, 180 Edison, Thomas Alva 254 Gossman, Lionel 195n Hugo, Victor 219, 220, 249 Catharine de’Medicis of France 340 Edwards, Lee 239 Gould, Stephen Jay 309n Humboldt, Wilhelm von 196 Cavaignac, Louis-Eugène 219, 220, 248, 266 Eggertsson, Thrainn, see Thrainn Eggertsson Granville, George, Earl of 314 Hume, David 7, 9, 10, 41, 48, 59n, 66–68, 82–101, Chafuen, Alejandro A. 53n Egil Skallagrimsson 17, 27, 29, 30 Gray, John 96n, 292n, 294n 103–105, 129, 186, 188, 200, 291, 322, 330 Chamfort, Nicolas 144 Ehrlich, Paul 241 Greer, Donald 146n Hume, Joseph 84 Chapman, John 284 Einar (Sigurdsson), Earl of Orkney, 22 Gripenstedt, Baron Johan August 176, 177, 178, 237, Hume, Katherine 84 Charles I of England 58 Einar of Thvera (Eyjolfsson) 22, 23, 25 238, 271 Huntford, Roland 270n Charles II of England 58 Eliot, George (Marian Evans) 284 Grundtvig, Nikolaj F. S. 31 Hutt, William H. 204n Charles I of Spain (Charles V, German Emperor) 54 Ellis, Havelock 309, 310 Gudny Bodvarsdaughter 14 Huxley, Thomas H. 285 Charles X of France 189, 190, 216, 244 Emund, Swedish Lawspeaker, 19n, 20 Gunnar Karlsson 339n, 341n, 342n Ibsen, Henrik 31 Charles XII of Sweden 170, 173 Engels, Friedrich 231n, 268n, 305–308, 325 Gunnarsson, Kjartan, see Kjartan Gunnarsson Ingolf Arnarson 61 Chastenay, Victorine de 189n Epstein, Richard 300n Gustav III of Sweden 166, 167 Jackson, Andrew 250 Chateaubriand, Viscount François-René de 337 Eric I Blood-Axe of Norway, 27, 29 Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden 174 James II of England 58, 83, 130 Chesterton, Gilbert K. 36, 149n, 157 Ericsson, Lars Magnus 178 Gylfason, Thorvaldur, see Thorvaldur Gylfason Jasay, Anthony de 231n Chevalier, Michel 237 Erling Ericson, Prince of Norway, 20 Haakon I Athelstan’s Foster-Son of Norway 18, 22 Jefferson, Thomas 250 Churchill, Winston S. 11, 340 Eskil Magnusson 15 Haakon IV the Old of Norway 15, 17, 22, 24–26, 30 Johnson, Samuel 130 Chydenius, Anders 7, 9–11, 162–183, 271 Fénelon, François 324 Hallveig Ormsdaughter 16 Jon Loftsson 14 Chydenius, Hedvig, 164 Finnis, John 40 Hamilton, Alexander 246 Jon Thorlaksson 180n Chydenius, Jacob, 164 Fjalldal, Magnus 20n Hamilton, Count Gustaf Knut 178 Jonas Kristjansson 30n Cicero, Marcus Tullius 42n, 49 Foot, Michael 253 Hamilton, William 130, 238 Jonsson, Vilmundur, see Vilmundur Jonsson Clausen, Christopher 332n Fox, Charles James 152 Hancock, William 204n Jouvenel, Baron Bertrand de 8–10 Coase, Ronald 81n, 117n, 125n Fox, Ralph 353 Hannan, Lord Daniel 18n Kalven, Harry J. 47 Cobban, Alfred 147, 158 Franklin, Benjamin 135, 246 Hannes H. Gissurarson 52n, 78n, 81n, 160n, 183n, Kant, Immanuel 287 330n, 341n Cobden, Richard 217, 237 Frederiksen, Niels Christian 238 Karlsdottir, Unnur Birna, see Unnur Birna Karlsdottir Hardenberg, Charlotte von 189 Cohen, Gerald A. 68, 69n, 72n Freeman, Charles W. 145n Karlsson, Gunnar, see Gunnar Karlsson Harold I Finehair of Norway 13, 18, 20, 22, 27 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 188 Freyre, Gilberto 335n Kayser, Carl Johan H. 238 Harris, Lord Ralph 155 Columbus, Christopher 52n Friedman, David 14n, 74n, 299n Kedourie, Elie 328 Hart, David 231n Conquest, Robert 71n Friedman, Milton 9, 10, 115n Kelsen, Hans 45n Hart, Herbert L. A. 40, 41, 67 Constant, Benjamin 7, 11, 184–213, 278, 279 Furet, François 147 Kemal, Mustafa 265 Hartwell, Ronald 326n Constant, Henriette 186 Geer, Baron Louis Gerhard De 176, 177 Kendall, Frances 206, 207n Hastings, Warren 132 Constant, Juste 186 Geijer, Erik Gustav 176 Keynes, Lord John Maynard 116, 240 Coudroy, Felix 216 Hayek, Friedrich A. von 8–10, 41, 42n, 48, 96, 100, 101, King, Martin Luther 43 Gellert, Friedrich 107 125n, 173, 180, 215, 237n, 239, 281n, 327 Courtois, Stéphane 341n Kingsley, Charles 288 Genghis Khan 337, 353 Haynes, John Earl 343n Covarrubias, Diego de 54 Kjartan Gunnarsson 46 George III of England 130 Hazlitt, Henry 238, 239 Creighton, Mandell 335 Knight, Frank H. 292 George, Henry 231 Heckscher, Eli F. 163n, 179–181, 238n 348 Index Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers - Part I 349

Koestler, Arthur 342n Mao Zedong 339, 345, 346, 348 Peters, Edward 149n Samuelson, Paul 117n Kolakowski, Leszek 343 Marie-Antoinette of France 133, 139, 143– 145, 147, 148 Philip IV of France 142 Sanandaji, Nima 183n Kravchenko, Victor 342n Marx, Karl 53, 57, 68, 231n, 268, 269, 305–308, 325n, Pigou, Arthur C. 117n Sauvigny, Louis de 138 Kristina Nilsdaughter 15 326 Pitt, William 132, 152 Sawyer, Birgit 20n Kristjansson, Jonas, see Jonas Kristjansson Mary II of England 59, 63 Plato 96, 324 Schama, Sir Simon 144n, 147, 155 Krueger, Anne O. 80n Masham, Lady Damaris 59 Pluckrose, Helen 271n Schumpeter, Joseph 215 Krugman, Paul 240 Masham, Sir Francis 59 Popper, Sir Karl 8–10, 24, 155, 327 Scruton, Sir Roger 155, 160 Kukathas, Chandran 161n Mathiez, Albert 146n Potter, Beatrice (Lady Passfield) 286, 309 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of 58 Kuortti, Aatami 338n Maugham, William Somerset 133 Potter, Laurencina 285 Shakespeare, William 31, 284n Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter 111n, 238n McCarthy, Joseph 342 Potter, Richard 285 Sidgwick, Henry 117n Kveldulf (Bjalfason) 27 Mencken, Henry L. 240 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph 219, 231 Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph 135, 136 Laffer, Arthur B. 235n Menger, Carl 8–11, 53, 173, 232n Quesnay, François 105 Sigfus Bjartmarsson 125n Lakoff, Sanford 276n Mercado, Tomás de 54, 55 Quinton, Lord Anthony 100, 101 Sigurd Slembe, Pretender of Norway, 21 Lamartine, Alphonse de 218, 219, 224, 246 Mill, John Stuart 51, 117n, 196, 245, 246n, 281, 282, Rae, John 104n, 116n Sigurdur Ragnarsson 339n, 341n, 342n 284, 287, 288, 292, 294, 295, 304n, 305n, 326 Lamb, Charles 288 Ragnarsson, Sigurdur, see Sigurdur Ragnarsson Singer, Isaac Bashevis 314n Miller, David L. 70 Lamballe, Marie Thérèse, Princess of 143 Raico, Ralph 202 Skallagrim Kveldulfsson 27 Mingardi, Alberto 282n Lassalle, Ferdinand 297, 299 Ramaphosa, Cyril 208 Skuli Bardsson, Norwegian Earl, 15, 17, 22 Mises, Ludwig von 8–10, 41, 173, 181, 253, 327 Launay, Marquess Bernard de 138 Rand, Ayn 8–10, 54 Smiles, Samuel 253n Mitterand, François 289n Lee, Robert E. 331 Ranke, Leopold von 314 Smith, Adam (senior), 103 More, Sir Thomas 98 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 254 Rawls, John 66, 180 Smith, Adam 7–10, 66, 74, 75n, 87, 89, 99, 102–127, Moreira, José 53n Leo XIII, Pope 237 Read, Leonard 114, 238 131, 154, 168, 173–175, 186, 188, 200, 202, 215, 216, 228, Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 254 269, 319, 322 Lewis IX of France (Saint Louis) 37 Reagan, Ronald 11, 239 Myrdal, Alva 310 Smith, Margaret 103 Lewis XIV of France 83, 188, 199, 268, 275 Reed, Lawrence 253 Myrdal, Gunnar 310 Snorri Sturluson 7, 9–11, 12–33, 57, 271, 320 Lewis XV of France 199, 275 Reeve, Henry 245 Napoleon I, see Bonaparte, Napoleon Socrates 192, 193 Lewis XVI of France 133, 135–139, 142–145, 244, 275 Renan, Ernest 160 Napoleon III, see Bonaparte, Louis-Napoleon Sokal, Alan 271n Lewis XVII of France 144, 145 Récamier, Juliette 189 Narveson, Jan 72n, 89n Soto, Domingo de 54 Lewis XVIII of France 185, 189 Ricardo, David 99, 215, 231 Necker, Jacques 105 Southey, Robert 325 Lincoln, Abraham 332, 333 Richert, Johan Gabriel 175 Nef, Robert 26n Spencer, George 282 Lindal, Sigurdur 18n Robespierre, Maximilien 142, 144, 236 Nero, Roman Emperor 337 Spencer, Harriet 282 Lindbeck, Assar 115 Roche, George Charles 218n, 220n Nobel, Alfred 178 Spencer, Herbert 8, 9, 280–311, 318, 322 Linder, Staffan Burenstam 260n Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, François, Duke of 138 Norberg, Johan 175, 176n, 178n, 180n Spencer, Thomas 282 Lindsay, James A. 271n Rockingham, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquess Nordal, Sigurdur 30, 32n Spooner, Lysander 51 Lipset, Seymor Martin 261 of 130, 131 Nozick, Robert 9, 10, 48, 61, 64n Staël, Albertine de 186, 187, 189 Lochner, Joseph 300 Rognvald, Prince of Norway 29 Oakeshott, Michael 8–10, 33n, 100 Staël, Baroness Germaine de 186–189, 200 Lochner, Louis P. 338n Roosevelt, Franklin D. 340 Ohlsson, Per T. 237n Stalin, Joseph (Jughashvili) 329, 338– 341 Locke, Agnes 57 Roover, Raymond de 52 Olaf I Tryggvason of Norway 18, 20 Steinberg, Jonathan 26n Locke, John (senior) 57 Rosanoff, Martin André 254n Olaf II the Fat of Norway 19, 20, 22, 24 Rosebery, Archibald Philip, Earl of 316 Stewart, Dugald 105 Locke, John 7, 9, 10, 56–81, 89, 91, 96, 97, 129, 168, 321 Olafsson, Arnljotur, see Arnljotur Olafsson Stigler, George J. 47n, 115n Louis Philippe I of France 190, 216, 218, 233, 244, 248 Ross, Alf 45n Oras, Ants 341 Stolypin, Pyotr 275 Louw, Leon 206, 207n Rothbard, Murray 299n Orléans, Philippe, Duke of 137, 143, 144 Strauss, Leo 257 Lowe, Keith 72n Rousseau, Jean–Jacques 86, 145, 156, 185, 193, 195, 197, Orwell, George (Eric Blair) 35 198, 203, 236, 322 Stringham, Edward 117n Macaulay, Baron Thomas Babington 325 Ostrom, Elinor 258, 259, 298 Runolfsson, Birgir T., see Birgir T. Runolfsson Sturla Thordson Chieftain 14, 16 Macedo, Stephen 40n Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza, Shah of Iran, 265, 275 Ruskin, John 288 Sturla Thordson Chronicler 17n, 25n, 151n Macpherson, Crawford B. 68, 69 Paine, Thomas 133 Russell, Dean 237n Sturluson, Snorri, see Snorri Sturluson Madison, James 246 Palmer, Tom G. 72n, 96n Ryan, Alan 69n Ståhlberg, Kaarlo Juho 179 Magnus I the Good of Norway 22 Parsons, Talcott 281n Rydenfelt, Sven 182 Sumner, William Graham 8–10 Magnus III Barefoot of Norway 15 Pedro II, Brazilian Emperor 151, 275 Röpke, Wilhelm 8–10 Sutherland, Donald 155n Malesherbes, Guillaume-Chrétien 244, 249 Peltzman, Sam 115n Saemund Sigfusson 15 Tacitus, Publius Cornelius 337 Malthus, Thomas 215, 231, 232 Peter I, Russian Emperor 338 Salin, Pascal 210 Taine, Hippolyte 138n, 146 Mandela, Nelson 208 350 Index

Tawney, Richard H. 53 Tomasson, Richard F 261n Teather, Richard 211n Torgny, Swedish Lawspeaker, 19, 173, 177, 271 Tegnér, Esaias 31, 174, 177 Turgot, Robert Jacques 105 Thatcher, Margaret (Baroness Kesteven) 11, 155, Unnur Birna Karlsdottir 310n 239, 253 Victoria I of the United Kingdom 315, 316 Thomas, Nigel 75 Vilmundur Jonsson 310 Thompson, Thomas Phillips 300, 301 Vitoria, Francisco de 53 Thorgils Bodvarsson 25 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) 83 Thorlaksson, Jon, see Jon Thorlaksson Wallenberg, André Oscar 178 Thorolf Kveldulfsson 27 Warming, Jens 76n Thorolf Skallagrimsson 27, 29 Washington, George 246, 248, 250 Thorvaldur Gylfason 78n Webb, Sidney 286, 309 Thorvard Thorarinsson 25 Wenner-Gren, Axel 178 Thorvard Thordson 25 Wiesel, Elie 338, 339 Thrainn Eggertsson 13n, 27n, 74n, 110n Wieser, Friedrich von 230 Thrasymachus of Chalcedon 39 William III of England 58, 59 Tiebout, Charles M. 210n William of Sabina 25, 151 Tingsten, Herbert 181 Winegarten, Rene 186n, 189n Tocqueville, Count Alexis de 7, 8, 11, 146, 219, 220, Wingquist, Sven 178 242–279, 292, 314, 322, 323, 330 Winthrop, John 249n Tocqueville, Count Hervé 244 Woods, Tiger 253 Tocqueville, Louise de 244 Xenophon of Athens 92, 93n Tocqueville, Mary de 245 Zhou Enlai 145 Tolkien, John R. R. 31 Hannes H. Gissurarson is Professor of Politics at the University of Iceland and Director of Research at RNH, the Icelandic Research Centre for Innovation and Economic Growth. The author of several books in Icelandic, English and Swedish, he has been on the governing boards of the Central Bank of Iceland and the Mont Pelerin Society and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford, UCLA, LUISS, George Mason and other universities. He holds a D.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University and a B.A. and an M.A. in History and Philosophy from the University of Iceland.